Cost-Effective Long Term Groundwater Monitoring Design
B. S. Minsker,* A. J. Valocchi, and P. M. Reed
Sponsor: Illinois Water Resources Center, U. S. Geological Survey

During groundwater remediation, monitoring wells must be sampled to track the progress of remediation. Large, complex sites may have hundreds of monitoring wells that were installed for site characterization and long-term sampling from all of these wells can cost millions of dollars per year. The objective of this project is to develop a methodology for designing cost-effective long-term monitoring plans and to demonstrate the methodology’s capabilities by applying it at a field site. The method combines three primary components: a groundwater fate-and-transport simulation, several plume interpolation techniques, and a genetic algorithm to search for effective sampling plans.