The contamination of soils and groundwater by volatile organic compounds (VOC's), such as organic solvents and hydrocarbon fuels, is a problem at many industrial facilities. Key to the characterization of surface contamination conditions and to the design and implementation of effective remediation strategies is an understanding of the physical, chemical, and biological processes on different scales that affect the behavior of contaminants in the subsurface environment. Based on the character of the available data, we need a corresponding model concept which correctly represents the physical processes. The first part of the talk will discuss how scale and system-dependent processes and parameters are incorporated into a conceptual model. Next, a robust and effective numerical algorithm for representing the aforementioned concepts will be presented. In addition, two examples involving a three-phase, three-component model for the remediation process of heat injection and the scale dependence of model parameters will be provided.

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Confinement and Remediation of Environmental Hazards

1999-2000 Reactive Flow and Transport Phenomena