Steady-state analysis of pollutant transport to assess landfill liner performance

Abstract

New analytical solutions are presented for the assessment of the impact of contaminant transport through landfill liners on groundwater quality under steady-state conditions. These solutions can be applied to evaluate the equivalency and the effectiveness of landfill liners, even those that include a geomembrane, taking into account the presence of a natural attenuation layer interposed between the engineered barrier and the underlying aquifer. The impact of a contaminant on groundwater quality is quantified through the determination of the contaminant concentration along the horizontal direction of the groundwater flow for the case of thin aquifers that are only a few meters thick. For the case of thick aquifers, both a closed-form analytical solution and a step-by-step numerical solution are provided for the calculation of the variations in the contaminant concentration in horizontal and vertical directions within the aquifer.