Forensic Analysis of Chlorinated Hydrocarbon Plumes in Groundwater: a Multi-Site Perspective
Titel:
Forensic Analysis of Chlorinated Hydrocarbon Plumes in Groundwater: a Multi-Site Perspective
Auteur:
McNab, Walt W.
Verschenen in:
Environmental forensics
Paginering:
Jaargang 2 (2001) nr. 4 pagina's 313-320
Jaar:
2001
Inhoud:
Forensic analyses of chlorinated hydrocarbon plumes typically entail reviews of site records, flow and transport modeling, and analysis of indicator compounds to gain insights into the behavior of a contaminant plume in the subsurface. Such approaches are directed toward unraveling the specific circumstances associated with the disposal history and hydrogeology of a site. A complimentary approach is to compare the behavior of a particular plume with a population of plumes from other sites that may be influenced by similar mechanisms (e.g. transformation processes such as reductive dehalogenation). In other words, hypotheses pertaining to plume behavior can be tested against a knowledge base of what is typical behavior and what is not. To address this proposed methodology, three example applications of statistical techniques to a multi-site data set are presented to provide background for problems that may be pertinent to forensic analyses. These examples include measuring the frequency of association between selected chlorinated hydrocarbon compounds, assessing the effects of transformation processes on temporal concentration trends in populations of groundwater monitoring wells, and dating plumes, in a relative sense, by concentration correlation analyses. In each case, the results of the statistical analyses are consistent with expectation, indicating that meaningful trends in chlorinated hydrocarbon plume behavior may be discerned from a diverse multi-site data set.
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