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Groundwater and Subsurface Remediation: Research Strategies for In-situ Technologies
Journal of ELSEVIER
Hydrology Journal of Hydrology 192 (1997) 383-389
Book Renews
Groundwater and Subsurface Remediation: Research Strategies for ln-situ Technologies, by H. Kobus, B. Barczewski and H.P. Koschitzky (Editors), Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1996, 337 pp. This book has the sort of title that normally gets me reaching straight for my credit card. Which modern, practising hydrogeologist does not want to know more about in-situ technologies for subsurface remediation? For those of us who grapple with reclamation of contaminated land and groundwater pollution resulting from urban and industrial decay, the old adage "where there's muck, there's money" continues to prove true sufficiently frequently that we are enthusiastic to expand our diagnostic experience and repertoire of remedies. In-situ technologies have particular appeal, since they not only promise liberation from the elevated costs and occupational health hazards associated with "dig-and-treat" solutions, but also demand the very skills that hydrogeologists have spent their careers cultivating (albeit often for other purposes). For those who are new to the field of subsurface remediation, this book affords a pleasant readable route into the mainstream literature. However, if you are an embattled hydrogeologist desperately seeking novel solutions to bewildering problems that have arisen during your latest contaminated land investigation, I would suggest you spend the (not inconsiderable) cost of this book on making another field measurement or two. I make this judgement because the book is predominantly a selective review of recent academic research in Canada and Germany on this theme, distractingly arranged as a (somewhat brazen) advertisement for forthcoming research activities in the home laboratory of the three editors at the University of Stuttgart. So, in the unlikely event that you are active in subsurface remediation but unaware of the excellent work pioneered at the University of Waterloo, Ontario (by the renowned Cherry, Frind, Gillham, Mackay, Barker, Blowes and colleagues), here is a painless way to catch up on the literature. In a few well written chapters you can find out all about the many experiments conducted at the Borden site, get current with multi-component reactive transport modelling of acid leachate migration at mine sites, and appreciate the potential for using barrier walls of iron filings to enhance degradation of halogenated organic compounds. Moving south of the US border, three excellent review papers broaden the scope (and status) of the book: Tsang gives a particularly lucid (if laconic) review of predictive modelling for heterogeneous systems; Chapelle briefly examines the similarities and differences in laboratory and PII: S0022-1694(96)03315-X
384
Book Reviews
field-measured rates of biodegradation of toluene and benzene, drawing lessons for experimental design; and Wilson describes the latest advances in the use of etched-glass micromodels in the direct observation of bacterial motility in porous media. Moving east of the Atlantic, the book soon reveals its promotional bias for the University of Stuttgart, a bias relieved only by a few interesting reviews and case studies from neighbouring countries. For instance, Sauty describes work undertaken by BRGM (France) on the coupling of geochemical reaction simulations to particletracking advection-dispersion models. Aalpenhaar and others (Netherlands) describe a hybrid remediation scheme (i.e. involving both in-situ and pump-andtreat technologies) for soil contaminated with chloroethene. Apart from two papers from the Technical Universities of Hamburg and Berlin, contributions from the University of Stuttgart occupy the remainder of the volume. The editorial justification for this institutional focus is the opening in September 1995 of the VEGAS research facility at the University of Stuttgart. (Furthermore, and rather irritatingly, most of the other papers in the book go to tortuous lengths to make fawning references to VEGAS, regardless of real relevance.) VEGAS is apparently a set of compartmentalised "sand tanks" in which hydraulically controlled experiments on subsurface pollutant movement and in-situ remediation may be performed. In addition, it is intended that blocks of contaminated soil from field sites will be containerised and brought to the VEGAS laboratory to lab-test remediation schemes before implementation. (It is not indicated how containerisation will be achieved without significantly disturbing soil structure.) As VEGAS is essentially a new facility, the papers in the book hailing from Stuttgart are (not surprisingly) a little thin on vindication of the VEGAS concept. The introductory paper by Kobus lists the five groups of topics for forthcoming research in the VEGAS facility, namely: • • • • •
non-aqueous phase liquids in the unsaturated zone; optimisation and development of hydraulic remediation techniques; contaminant transformation by in-situ reduction; improvement of remediation efficiency for PAH clean-up; immobilization, containment and biochemical degradation techniques.
As might be expected, numerical simulation is to be used in both the design and interpretation phases of VEGAS experiments. Although Kobus does not discuss the geometry and plumbing of the VEGAS system (these are discussed later in the volume by the other two editors), he does include Pythonesque photographs of the exterior of the VEGAS building and some nondescript sand tanks! The laboratory itself (as described by Barczewski and Koschitsky) is surprisingly small (36 m by 18.5 m), and is fitted with a rectangular tank (18.5 rex9 m x 4.5 m), a cylindrical column (6.5 m tall, 3.2 m diameter), and two so-called "flumes" (the inappropriate use of this term recalls the origins of the lab as an appendage to an existing open-channel hydraulics facility), which are really long, thin sand tanks. The rationale for VEGAS is that German law would preclude the kind of activities
Book Reviews
385
undertaken by the University of Waterloo at their Borden field site, since the deliberate subsurface injection of pollutants at an experimental field site would not be allowed. Many researchers elsewhere in the world will empathise with this problem! As such, VEGAS is clearly a laudable response to legislative nonsense, and the efforts of Kobus and others in establishing the laboratory are highly commendable. The VEGAS facility has been jointly funded by the German Federal Ministry for Research and the Environment Ministry of the State of Baden-Wiii'ttemburg, and will in theory be open to other institutions in Germany and elsewhere for collaborative research. Given this intention, it is perhaps surprising that the editors have not invited contributions to this book (which effectively launches VEGAS into the international arena) from other prominent and well established European research groups in subsurface remediation. There are, for instance, at least two major research groups in Germany which are not represented in this volume; many more exist in Austria, Denmark, England, Sweden, Switzerland, and so on. The papers in the book are arranged appealingly into four sections, as follows: , • • •
From From From From
Concepts to Quantification: Experiments Processes to Technologies: Interactions and Scales Processes to Systems: Numerical Models Technology to Application: Strategies
However, it would be wrong to suppose that the volume achieves a smooth progression through these topics. Rather, the quality of the contributions in each section varies according to the experiences and abilities of the different authors. Perhaps most disappointing is the final section "From Technology to Application: Strategies". This is the section to which a practitioner will turn first, and instead of finding shining examples of how some of the more exciting ideas given in the preceding sections are applied in practice, most contaminated land specialists will, like the young man in Matthew 19:22, turn away sad. This is because of the persistence of a yawning gap between the bright ideas and a priori reasoning of the academics (who develop the concepts, process descriptions and models presented in the first three sections) and the workaday pragmatism of the regulators and engineers (who play it safe and opt for proven technology every time). Don't expect to find examples of novel practice in this section, and you won't be disappointed. In terms of presentation, the book is generally neat and well produced. It would have benefited from an English language spell-checker (and proof reader) to remove obvious mistakes (e.g. "pertrudes" for "protrudes", and "accessable" for "accessible" on p. 132 alone). Also, the initially impressive use of colour plates palls a little when one realises that many of the coloured plot lines are unlabelled and thus virtually unintelligible (e.g. Figure 10, p. 229). In conclusion then, I would recommend that you: • buy this book, if you are new to the field of subsurface remediation and want a quick (if selective) introduction;
386
Book Reviews
• borrow a copy, if you're already active in this field and just want to be sure you haven't missed some recent developments; • don't bother buying or borrowing, if you're looking for new ideas to help you meet that imminent deadline on your problematic clean-up with a limited budget[ PAUL L. YOUNGER (Newcastle upon Tyne, UK)
Reservoirs in River Basin Development. by L. Santbergen and C.-J. van Westen (Editors). Balkema, Rotterdam, Brookfield, USA, 1995, Vols. 1 and 2: ISBN 90 5410 559 3, £84.00 (Dfl. 210). Vol. 1, ISBN 90 5410 560 7; Vol. 2, ISBN 90 5410 561 5. The papers for these expensively presented volumes were selected by an organising/ scientific committee from contributions to the Proceedings of the ICOLD (International C_ommission o_n Large Dams) Symposium held in Oslo, Norway on 6 July 1995. The individual papers, once accepted, were prepared by the individual authors as camera ready copy. This arrangement ensured that the Proceedings appeared in print quickly but at the expense of quality and even of understanding of some of the papers. Inevitably, therefore, neither the editors nor the publishers had an opportunity to undertake the copy editing which is most desirable in assembling such a volume of papers by diverse authors. Presentation, ty~style and even line spacing vary from paper to paper and a critical reviewer finds it painfuU (sic. Preface page x) to see the very numerous typographical and spelling errors throughout the volume. Even the Preface, signed by Hein Engel, is dated "March, 6th of July 1995". One paper lacks an Abstract; in another it is called a Summary. It is also unusual to have the Keynote address published twice; in Volume 1, it appears as a seven page Synopsis "because the author was working on the complete text which will be published in the second volume"; the full text appears in Volume 2. Yet time was available for the first editor to contribute to a review including summaries of 25 of the papers in Volume 1 as well as to an Appendix comprising a "synoptic overview" of the 25 papers in Parts 2-4 of Volume 1. In Volume l, following the Preface and Keynote addresses, the 31 papers were grouped under four topics, viz: Strategies for storing water in a river basin, alternative solutions and criteria for assessing alternatives - 5 papers, 70 pp, case histories of the Rhine (Netherlands), the Glomma (Norway), the Zambesi (Zambia), the Memve'Ele (Cameroun) and of various rivers in Spain. General papers - 6 papers, 61 pp. Case histories - 11 papers, 118 pp. Thematic papers - 8 papers, 81 pp: considered slotted pipe sediment sluicing, selection e r a storage reservoir site by system design, controlling reservoir sedimentation, water resources planning, spatial correlation as it affects the reliability of water resource
Hydrology Journal of Hydrology 192 (1997) 383-389
Book Renews
Groundwater and Subsurface Remediation: Research Strategies for ln-situ Technologies, by H. Kobus, B. Barczewski and H.P. Koschitzky (Editors), Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1996, 337 pp. This book has the sort of title that normally gets me reaching straight for my credit card. Which modern, practising hydrogeologist does not want to know more about in-situ technologies for subsurface remediation? For those of us who grapple with reclamation of contaminated land and groundwater pollution resulting from urban and industrial decay, the old adage "where there's muck, there's money" continues to prove true sufficiently frequently that we are enthusiastic to expand our diagnostic experience and repertoire of remedies. In-situ technologies have particular appeal, since they not only promise liberation from the elevated costs and occupational health hazards associated with "dig-and-treat" solutions, but also demand the very skills that hydrogeologists have spent their careers cultivating (albeit often for other purposes). For those who are new to the field of subsurface remediation, this book affords a pleasant readable route into the mainstream literature. However, if you are an embattled hydrogeologist desperately seeking novel solutions to bewildering problems that have arisen during your latest contaminated land investigation, I would suggest you spend the (not inconsiderable) cost of this book on making another field measurement or two. I make this judgement because the book is predominantly a selective review of recent academic research in Canada and Germany on this theme, distractingly arranged as a (somewhat brazen) advertisement for forthcoming research activities in the home laboratory of the three editors at the University of Stuttgart. So, in the unlikely event that you are active in subsurface remediation but unaware of the excellent work pioneered at the University of Waterloo, Ontario (by the renowned Cherry, Frind, Gillham, Mackay, Barker, Blowes and colleagues), here is a painless way to catch up on the literature. In a few well written chapters you can find out all about the many experiments conducted at the Borden site, get current with multi-component reactive transport modelling of acid leachate migration at mine sites, and appreciate the potential for using barrier walls of iron filings to enhance degradation of halogenated organic compounds. Moving south of the US border, three excellent review papers broaden the scope (and status) of the book: Tsang gives a particularly lucid (if laconic) review of predictive modelling for heterogeneous systems; Chapelle briefly examines the similarities and differences in laboratory and PII: S0022-1694(96)03315-X
384
Book Reviews
field-measured rates of biodegradation of toluene and benzene, drawing lessons for experimental design; and Wilson describes the latest advances in the use of etched-glass micromodels in the direct observation of bacterial motility in porous media. Moving east of the Atlantic, the book soon reveals its promotional bias for the University of Stuttgart, a bias relieved only by a few interesting reviews and case studies from neighbouring countries. For instance, Sauty describes work undertaken by BRGM (France) on the coupling of geochemical reaction simulations to particletracking advection-dispersion models. Aalpenhaar and others (Netherlands) describe a hybrid remediation scheme (i.e. involving both in-situ and pump-andtreat technologies) for soil contaminated with chloroethene. Apart from two papers from the Technical Universities of Hamburg and Berlin, contributions from the University of Stuttgart occupy the remainder of the volume. The editorial justification for this institutional focus is the opening in September 1995 of the VEGAS research facility at the University of Stuttgart. (Furthermore, and rather irritatingly, most of the other papers in the book go to tortuous lengths to make fawning references to VEGAS, regardless of real relevance.) VEGAS is apparently a set of compartmentalised "sand tanks" in which hydraulically controlled experiments on subsurface pollutant movement and in-situ remediation may be performed. In addition, it is intended that blocks of contaminated soil from field sites will be containerised and brought to the VEGAS laboratory to lab-test remediation schemes before implementation. (It is not indicated how containerisation will be achieved without significantly disturbing soil structure.) As VEGAS is essentially a new facility, the papers in the book hailing from Stuttgart are (not surprisingly) a little thin on vindication of the VEGAS concept. The introductory paper by Kobus lists the five groups of topics for forthcoming research in the VEGAS facility, namely: • • • • •
non-aqueous phase liquids in the unsaturated zone; optimisation and development of hydraulic remediation techniques; contaminant transformation by in-situ reduction; improvement of remediation efficiency for PAH clean-up; immobilization, containment and biochemical degradation techniques.
As might be expected, numerical simulation is to be used in both the design and interpretation phases of VEGAS experiments. Although Kobus does not discuss the geometry and plumbing of the VEGAS system (these are discussed later in the volume by the other two editors), he does include Pythonesque photographs of the exterior of the VEGAS building and some nondescript sand tanks! The laboratory itself (as described by Barczewski and Koschitsky) is surprisingly small (36 m by 18.5 m), and is fitted with a rectangular tank (18.5 rex9 m x 4.5 m), a cylindrical column (6.5 m tall, 3.2 m diameter), and two so-called "flumes" (the inappropriate use of this term recalls the origins of the lab as an appendage to an existing open-channel hydraulics facility), which are really long, thin sand tanks. The rationale for VEGAS is that German law would preclude the kind of activities
Book Reviews
385
undertaken by the University of Waterloo at their Borden field site, since the deliberate subsurface injection of pollutants at an experimental field site would not be allowed. Many researchers elsewhere in the world will empathise with this problem! As such, VEGAS is clearly a laudable response to legislative nonsense, and the efforts of Kobus and others in establishing the laboratory are highly commendable. The VEGAS facility has been jointly funded by the German Federal Ministry for Research and the Environment Ministry of the State of Baden-Wiii'ttemburg, and will in theory be open to other institutions in Germany and elsewhere for collaborative research. Given this intention, it is perhaps surprising that the editors have not invited contributions to this book (which effectively launches VEGAS into the international arena) from other prominent and well established European research groups in subsurface remediation. There are, for instance, at least two major research groups in Germany which are not represented in this volume; many more exist in Austria, Denmark, England, Sweden, Switzerland, and so on. The papers in the book are arranged appealingly into four sections, as follows: , • • •
From From From From
Concepts to Quantification: Experiments Processes to Technologies: Interactions and Scales Processes to Systems: Numerical Models Technology to Application: Strategies
However, it would be wrong to suppose that the volume achieves a smooth progression through these topics. Rather, the quality of the contributions in each section varies according to the experiences and abilities of the different authors. Perhaps most disappointing is the final section "From Technology to Application: Strategies". This is the section to which a practitioner will turn first, and instead of finding shining examples of how some of the more exciting ideas given in the preceding sections are applied in practice, most contaminated land specialists will, like the young man in Matthew 19:22, turn away sad. This is because of the persistence of a yawning gap between the bright ideas and a priori reasoning of the academics (who develop the concepts, process descriptions and models presented in the first three sections) and the workaday pragmatism of the regulators and engineers (who play it safe and opt for proven technology every time). Don't expect to find examples of novel practice in this section, and you won't be disappointed. In terms of presentation, the book is generally neat and well produced. It would have benefited from an English language spell-checker (and proof reader) to remove obvious mistakes (e.g. "pertrudes" for "protrudes", and "accessable" for "accessible" on p. 132 alone). Also, the initially impressive use of colour plates palls a little when one realises that many of the coloured plot lines are unlabelled and thus virtually unintelligible (e.g. Figure 10, p. 229). In conclusion then, I would recommend that you: • buy this book, if you are new to the field of subsurface remediation and want a quick (if selective) introduction;
386
Book Reviews
• borrow a copy, if you're already active in this field and just want to be sure you haven't missed some recent developments; • don't bother buying or borrowing, if you're looking for new ideas to help you meet that imminent deadline on your problematic clean-up with a limited budget[ PAUL L. YOUNGER (Newcastle upon Tyne, UK)
Reservoirs in River Basin Development. by L. Santbergen and C.-J. van Westen (Editors). Balkema, Rotterdam, Brookfield, USA, 1995, Vols. 1 and 2: ISBN 90 5410 559 3, £84.00 (Dfl. 210). Vol. 1, ISBN 90 5410 560 7; Vol. 2, ISBN 90 5410 561 5. The papers for these expensively presented volumes were selected by an organising/ scientific committee from contributions to the Proceedings of the ICOLD (International C_ommission o_n Large Dams) Symposium held in Oslo, Norway on 6 July 1995. The individual papers, once accepted, were prepared by the individual authors as camera ready copy. This arrangement ensured that the Proceedings appeared in print quickly but at the expense of quality and even of understanding of some of the papers. Inevitably, therefore, neither the editors nor the publishers had an opportunity to undertake the copy editing which is most desirable in assembling such a volume of papers by diverse authors. Presentation, ty~style and even line spacing vary from paper to paper and a critical reviewer finds it painfuU (sic. Preface page x) to see the very numerous typographical and spelling errors throughout the volume. Even the Preface, signed by Hein Engel, is dated "March, 6th of July 1995". One paper lacks an Abstract; in another it is called a Summary. It is also unusual to have the Keynote address published twice; in Volume 1, it appears as a seven page Synopsis "because the author was working on the complete text which will be published in the second volume"; the full text appears in Volume 2. Yet time was available for the first editor to contribute to a review including summaries of 25 of the papers in Volume 1 as well as to an Appendix comprising a "synoptic overview" of the 25 papers in Parts 2-4 of Volume 1. In Volume l, following the Preface and Keynote addresses, the 31 papers were grouped under four topics, viz: Strategies for storing water in a river basin, alternative solutions and criteria for assessing alternatives - 5 papers, 70 pp, case histories of the Rhine (Netherlands), the Glomma (Norway), the Zambesi (Zambia), the Memve'Ele (Cameroun) and of various rivers in Spain. General papers - 6 papers, 61 pp. Case histories - 11 papers, 118 pp. Thematic papers - 8 papers, 81 pp: considered slotted pipe sediment sluicing, selection e r a storage reservoir site by system design, controlling reservoir sedimentation, water resources planning, spatial correlation as it affects the reliability of water resource