Earth, Atmosphere & Environment Sciences
Title : | A Novel Modeling Approach for selecting suitable Intrinsic Bioremediation strategies for Attenuating Oil spills in Coastal Aquifers |
Area of research : | Earth, Atmosphere & Environment Sciences |
Focus area : | Hydrogeology |
Principal Investigator : | Dr. Renu V, Indian Institute of Technology (Indian school of Mines) Dhanbad, Jharkhand |
Timeline Start Year : | 2024 |
Timeline End Year : | 2027 |
Contact info : | renuvalsala@gmail.com |
Details
Executive Summary : | Coastal aquifers are highly susceptible to oil spill threats due to their proximity to oil exploration, storage, transportation and refining facilities. Among the remediation strategies, in-situ bioremediation is one of the most versatile techniques to restore groundwater quality in the aquifers affected by oil spills. However, a major drawback in implementing this remediation method in natural aquifer systems is the inability to predict, monitor, and control the bioremediation rate. The biodegradation reactions of Petroleum Hydrocarbons (PHCs) in aquifers are site-specific and often limited by the availability of inherent microorganisms, electron acceptors, and nutrients. The enhancement of biodegradation can be achieved by supplying electron acceptors and nutrients (biostimulation) or microbial population (bioaugmentation) to the aquifer systems. The necessity to implement these enhancement strategies depends on the spill composition, intrinsic biodegradation conditions, and other natural attenuation processes in aquifers. Even though many studies were carried out to investigate the optimal remediation or bioremediation strategies, such studies in coastal aquifers are limited. salt water- Fresh water interaction and stratification in the coastal aquifers plays a crucial role in determining the effectiveness of bioremediation. The proposed project aims to develop a general modeling framework for selecting suitable bioremediation strategies for various spill, flow and biogeochemical scenarios in coastal aquifer systems. The project will involve developing a generalized groundwater flow and multi-component transport modeling framework for density-dependent flow conditions in coastal aquifers. Existing salt water intrusion models like FEFLOW and sEAWAT will be adopted for simulatng the density-dependent flows. These equations are solved using Finite Difference or Finite Volume approximations. The groundwater flow model will be used to simulate the groundwater flow velocity and salt water-fresh water interphase. The multi-component transport model will be used to simulate the coupled transport of dissolved PHCs, electron acceptors, microbes and nutrients in coastal aquifers under various flow conditions. The numerical model will be coupled with a deep learning based optimization code to select alternate bioremediation strategies and decide on the optimal conditions for implementing bioremediation strategies. The numerical tool results will provide preliminary information for decision or policymakers to plan and implement the remediation strategies for coastal aquifers contaminated with oil spills. The dissemination of the developed model will be carried out by publishing in reputed journals and conducting conferences. |
Co-PI: | Dr. Archana, Indian Institute of Technology (Indian school of Mines) Dhanbad, Jharkhand |
Total Budget (INR): | 28,85,720 |
Organizations involved