Repository logo
 
Loading...
Project Logo
Research Project

Optimal Design of Groundwater Monitoring Networks Using Modern Heuristics

Authors

Publications

A new method for groundwater plume detection under uncertainty
Publication . Nunes, Luís; Cunha, Maria da Conceição; Ribeiro, Luís; Azevedo, João
Groundwater contamination plumes characterization is a very hard task to perform, requiring usually a large number of sampling sites. In this article a method to optimize a monitoring network for plume detection and delimitation is proposed. It is assumed that a prior extensive sampling campaign was made, and only a few sampling sites must be included in the optimal monitoring network. The objective function incorporates the prior knowledge about concentration variability, in the form of its density function, and also a measure of spatial coverage (space-filling method), in order to best distribute the stations over the field. The method was applied to a synthetic case-study with 160 sampling locations, and a final optimal monitoring network with 40 stations was obtained. Simulated annealing optimization algorithm was used to solve this very difficult combinatorial problem, which has more than 8,6x1037 possible solutions).

Organizational Units

Description

Keywords

Contributors

Funders

Funding agency

Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia

Funding programme

POCI

Funding Award Number

POCTI/ECM/36289/2000

ID