| It is well known that the subsurface environment is strongly heterogeneous with respect to geological, hydrological, and chemical properties. These heterogeneities are often "random" and can sometimes vary by several orders of magnitude over short distances. Data limitations, in addition to the fact that the subsurface environment is invisible, make the prediction of contaminant transport very difficult. This thesis presents a comprehensive visualization library, consisting of approximately 50 high-resolution numerical simulations and visualizations, which systematically explore the effects of heterogeneity on groundwater flow and transport. In particular, this thesis studies the effects of spatial heterogeneity, temporal variability, multi-scale heterogeneity and their complex non-linear interactions. This thesis also investigates the applicability of effective macrodispersion models for predicting plume transport, and the probabilistic structure of parameters like head, concentration, seepage flux, and solute flux through high-resolution Monte Carlo simulations. Several interesting conclusions emerge from these visualizations, such as the relative importance of porosity and partitioning coefficient while considering the impact of interacting heterogeneities, the irreversibility of plume transport due to interaction between temporal variability and spatial heterogeneity, the effectiveness of macrodispersion models in the presence of multi-scale heterogeneity, and the skewed, non-stationary nature of concentration uncertainty. |
