Abstract.
The quality of shallow groundwater in the rural Bourtanger Moor area (NW Germany) has significantly deteriorated because of input of agricultural nutrients and by acid rain. This potentially endangers the local water supply from wells screened in deeper portions of the multi-aquifer system. Several modelling approaches were applied to determine the vertical propagation velocity of the pollutants aluminium, potassium and nitrate. They included distribution of conservative natural tracers, vertically spaced age dating of groundwater, stoichiometric mass balancing of pollutant input and available reactive aquifer material, column experiments and their subsequent reactive transport modelling. The latter method gives the most realistic estimates on reactive transport rates, but requires high efforts.
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Houben, .G., Martiny, .A., Bäßler, .N. et al. Assessing the reactive transport of inorganic pollutants in groundwater of the Bourtanger Moor area (NW Germany). Env Geol 41, 480–488 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1007/s002540100424
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s002540100424