Characterizing redox conditions and monitoring attenuation of selected pharmaceuticals during artificial recharge through a reactive layer

Valhondo, Cristina; Carrera, Jesús; Ayora, Carlos; Tubau, Isabel; Martinez-Landa, Lurdes; Nödler, Karsten; Licha, Tobias

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2015.01.030

Cited by 48 publications

(51 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…The barrier comprises vegetable compost and aquifer sand in equal volumetric proportions and a very small fraction of clay and iron oxides. The vegetable compost aimed to release dissolved organic carbon into the infiltrating water to favor a broad range of redox conditions below the basin, thus increasing the diversity of microbial metabolic paths to enhance removal of organic contaminants (Li et al, 2013;Alidina et al, 2014;Valhondo et al, 2014Valhondo et al, , 2015. Clay and iron oxide were added to provide sorption sites for cationic and anionic organic compounds, respectively.…”

Section: Site Description and Instrumentationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Water quality is enhanced during passage through soil (Bouwer, 2002;Greskowiak et al, 2005) because the passage causes reduction not only in turbidity and suspended matter, but also in the concentrations of dissolved organic matter (Vanderzalm et al, 2006), nutrients (Bekele et al, 2011), pathogens , and some trace organic contaminants Hoppe-Jones et al, 2010;Valhondo et al, 2014Valhondo et al, , 2015. The appropriate management of artificial recharge systems requires an understanding of the fate of the potential contaminants.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To the best of our knowledge, however, no test has been performed for site-scale characterization. To this end, we performed a pulse injection test at the Sant Vicenç site (Barcelona, Spain;Valhondo et al, 2014Valhondo et al, , 2015 to obtain the RTDs by monitoring breakthrough curves.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Tracer test modeling for characterizing heterogeneity and local-scale residence time distribution in an artificial recharge site

Valhondo

Martinez-Landa

Carrera

et al. 2016

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Artificial recharge of aquifers is a technique for improving water quality and increasing groundwater resources. Understanding the fate of a potential contaminant requires knowledge of the residence time distribution (RTD) of the recharged water in the aquifer beneath. A simple way to obtain the RTDs is to perform a tracer test. We performed a pulse injection tracer test in an artificial recharge system through an infiltration basin to obtain the breakthrough curves, which directly yield the RTDs. The RTDs turned out to be very broad and we used a numerical model to interpret them, to characterize heterogeneity, and to extend the model to other flow conditions. The model comprised nine layers at the site scaled to emulate the layering of aquifer deposits. Two types of hypotheses were considered: homogeneous (all flow and transport parameters identical for every layer) and heterogeneous (diverse parameters for each layer). The parameters were calibrated against the head and concentration data in both model types, which were validated quite satisfactorily against 1,1,2-Trichloroethane and electrical conductivity data collected over a long period of time with highly varying flow conditions. We found that the broad RTDs can be attributed to the complex flow structure generated under the basin due to three-dimensionality and time fluctuations (the homogeneous model produced broad RTDs) and the heterogeneity of the media (the heterogeneous model yielded much better fits). We conclude that heterogeneity must be acknowledged to properly assess mixing and broad RTDs, which are required to explain the water quality improvement of artificial recharge basins.

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Section: Site Description and Instrumentationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Tracer test modeling for characterizing heterogeneity and local-scale residence time distribution in an artificial recharge site

Valhondo

Martinez-Landa

Carrera

et al. 2016

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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“…The recharge water comes from the Llobregat River and the main goal of the facility is to increase the water storage in the aquifer, as well as to improve the quality of the recharged water. A reactive layer was placed at the bottom of the infiltration pond to improve the degradation of both traditional pollutants and emerging organic compounds (e.g., pharmaceuticals; Valhondo et al, 2015). The area surrounding the facility involves agricultural, industrial, and urban uses.…”

Section: Description Of the Field Sitesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, Serchio recharged water is used as drinking water; consequently, quality plays a higher role than, for example, in Malta, where water is used as a water barrier to salt intrusion. On the other hand, quality is also important in sites where quality aspects existed independently of recharge, like Arenales (high presence of nitrate in groundwater due to farming activity in the zone; see San-Sebastián et al, 2018) and Llobregat (quality problems related to industrial and urban activities; see Valhondo et al, 2015).…”

Section: Comparison Of Risk Probabilities Defined By Expert Criteriamentioning

confidence: 99%

A risk assessment methodology to evaluate the risk failure of managed aquifer recharge in the Mediterranean Basin

Rodríguez‐Escales

Canelles

Sánchez-Vila

et al. 2018

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Managed aquifer recharge (MAR) can be affected by many risks. Those risks are related to different technical and non-technical aspects of recharge, like water availability, water quality, legislation, social issues, etc. Many other works have acknowledged risks of this nature theoretically; however, their quantification and definition has not been developed. In this study, the risk definition and quantification has been performed by means of "fault trees" and probabilistic risk assessment (PRA). We defined a fault tree with 65 basic events applicable to the operation phase. After that, we have applied this methodology to six different managed aquifer recharge sites located in the Mediterranean Basin (Portugal, Spain, Italy, Malta, and Israel). The probabilities of the basic events were defined by expert criteria, based on the knowledge of the different managers of the facilities. From that, we conclude that in all sites, the perception of the expert criteria of the non-technical aspects were as much or even more important than the technical aspects. Regarding the risk results, we observe that the total risk in three of the six sites was equal to or above 0.90. That would mean that the MAR facilities have a risk of failure equal to or higher than 90 % in the period of 2-6 years. The other three sites presented lower risks (75, 29, and 18 % for Malta, Menashe, and Serchio, respectively).

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Improving degradation of emerging organic compounds by applying chaotic advection in Managed Aquifer Recharge in randomly heterogeneous porous media

Rodríguez‐Escales

Fernàndez-García

Drechsel³

et al. 2017

Water Resources Research

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Improving degradation rates of emerging organic compounds (EOCs) in groundwater is still a challenge. Although their degradation is not fully understood, it has been observed that some substances are preferably degraded under specific redox conditions. The coupling of Managed Aquifer Recharge with soil aquifer remediation treatment, by placing a reactive layer containing organic matter at the bottom of the infiltration pond, is a promising technology to improve the rate of degradation of EOCs. Its success is based on assuming that recharged water and groundwater get well mixed, which is not always true. It has been demonstrated that mixing can be enhanced by inducing chaotic advection through extraction‐injection‐engineering. In this work, we analyze how chaotic advection might enhance the spreading of redox conditions with the final aim of improving degradation of a mix of benzotriazoles: benzotriazole, 5‐methyl‐benzotriazole, and 5‐chloro‐benzotriazole. The degradation of the first two compounds was fastest under aerobic conditions whereas the third compound was best degraded under denitrification conditions. We developed a reactive transport model that describes how a recharged water rich in organic matter mixes with groundwater, how this organic matter is oxidized by different electron acceptors, and how the benzotriazoles are degraded attending for the redox state. The model was tested in different scenarios of recharge, both in homogenous and in heterogenous media. It was found that chaotic flow increases the spreading of the plume of recharged water. Consequently, different redox conditions coexist at a given time, facilitating the degradation of EOCs.

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Characterizing redox conditions and monitoring attenuation of selected pharmaceuticals during artificial recharge through a reactive layer

Cited by 48 publications

References 53 publications

Tracer test modeling for characterizing heterogeneity and local-scale residence time distribution in an artificial recharge site

Tracer test modeling for characterizing heterogeneity and local-scale residence time distribution in an artificial recharge site

A risk assessment methodology to evaluate the risk failure of managed aquifer recharge in the Mediterranean Basin

Improving degradation of emerging organic compounds by applying chaotic advection in Managed Aquifer Recharge in randomly heterogeneous porous media

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