The hydrodynamic dispersion is an important factor influencing the reactive solute transport in the porous media, and many previous studies assumed that it linearly varied with the average velocity of the groundwater flow. Actually, such linear relationship has been challenged by more and more experimental observations, even in homogeneous media. In this study, we aim to investigate the relationship between hydrodynamics dispersion and the flow velocity in different types of porous media through a laboratory-controlled experiment. The results indicate that (1) the dispersion coefficient should not be a linear function of the flow velocity when the relationship between the flow velocity and the hydraulic gradient can be described by Darcy’s law satisfactorily; (2) Power function works well in describing the dispersion coefficient changing with the flow velocity for different types of porous media, and the power value is between 1.0-2.0 for different particle sizes.

In terms of controlling groundwater in deep foundation pit projects, the usual methods include increasing the curtain depth, reducing the amount of pumped groundwater, and implementing integrated control, in order to reduce the drawdown and land subsidence outside pits. In dewatering design for confined water, factors including drawdown requirements, the thickness of aquifers, the depth of dewatering wells and the depth of cutoff curtains have to be considered comprehensively and numerical simulations are generally conducted for calculation and analysis. Longyang Road Station on Shanghai Metro Line 18 is taken as the case study subject in this paper, a groundwater seepage model is developed according to the on-site engineering geological conditions and hydrogeological conditions, the excavation depth of the foundation pit as well as the design depth of the enclosure, hydrogeological parameters are determined via the pumping test, and the foundation pit dewatering is simulated by means of the three-dimensional finite difference method, which produces numerical results that consistent with real monitoring data as to the groundwater table. Besides, the drawdown and the land subsidence both inside and outside the pit caused by foundation pit dewatering are calculated and analyzed for various curtain depths. This study reveals that the drawdown and the land subsidence change faster near the curtain with the increase in the curtain depth, and the gradient of drawdown and land subsidence changes dwindles beyond certain depths. In this project, the curtain depth of 47/49 m is adopted, and a drawdown-land subsidence verification test is completed given hanging curtains before the excavation. The result turns out that the real measurements basically match the calculation results from the numerical simulation, and by increasing the depth of curtains, the land subsidence resulting from dewatering is effectively controlled.

As nitrate pollution in groundwater has become increasingly serious in recent years, nitrogen isotope was adopted in this paper to define its sources in a typical agricultural area of Dong’e hydrogeological unit. The results show that: Higher content of NO3- detected in shallow groundwater is 27.77 mg/L on average and δ15N content ranges from 7.8‰ to 12 ‰, indicating that shallow groundwater is mainly contaminated by sewage or feces. In contrast, less NO3- in deep groundwater (karst water) has an average value of 12.81 mg/L and δ15N content is between 7.2‰ and 14.3‰, which is closely related to human disturbance as mentioned above. In addition, considering relatively low groundwater quality at some monitoring sites, reasonable fertilization is a better choice in the study area to reduce nitrate source in groundwater.

At present, most calculation results regarding foundation pit dewatering are ideal values, making construction resources prone to being wasted. In order to optimize the traditional pipe well design of large wells, the linear programming solution module in Excel is used, with the total water inflow taken as the objective function, the water level drawdown used as the constraint and test condition, and a station project on the Chengdu Metro Line 7 serving as the subject of this study. The total water inflow of the traditional pipe well design is optimized by the simplex method, producing a total water inflow of 4 040.65 m3/d, which, compared with 4 829.79 m3/d, the total water inflow calculated by means of the traditional design optimization method, engenders a reduction of roughly 16% per day. The feasibility of the optimization methodology is verified by the drawdown constraint, which reveals the decrease of construction costs and the diminution of the influence that the lowered groundwater level has on the surroundings of the metro station. Finally, references are provided as to optimizing the dewatering designs for other metro stations in similar engineering and hydrogeological conditions.

Horizontal soil column method was used to determine the horizontal diffusion rate of sandy loam, loam and clay loam under the same bulk density. The results showed that the migration rates of different lithological wet fronts were different. The sandy loam had the fastest migration rate, the loam followed, and the clay loam was the slowest, but the law of change is the same among the three lithologies. The volumetric water content affects the change of Boltzmann parameter λ. When the volumetric water content is between 0.35-0.45 cm3/cm3, λ approaches stability. When the volumetric water content is less than 0.35 cm3/cm3, the λ value decreases rapidly with the decrease of water content. The water diffusion rate is related to the volumetric water content and particle size. The greater the moisture content is, the greater the diffusion rate will be. The larger the particle size, the larger the diffusion rate. The diffusivity of sandy loam is 10-30 times larger than that of loam and clay loam. The relationship between water content and diffusion rate is in accordance with the exponential function.

Based on the observation of a complete hydrological year from June 2014 to May 2015, the temporal and spatial variations of the main inorganic nitrogen (MIN, referring to NO3--N, NO2--N, NH4+-N) in surface water and groundwater of the Li River and the Yuan River wetland succession zones are analyzed. The Li River and the Yuan River are located in agricultural and non-agricultural areas, and this study focus on the influence of surface water level and groundwater depth and precipitation on nitrogen pollution. The results show that NO3--N in surface water accounts for 70%-90% of MIN, but it does not exceed the limit of national drinking water surface water standard. Groundwater is seriously polluted by NH4+-N. Based on the groundwater quality standard of NH4+-N, the groundwater quality in the Li River exceeds Class III water standard throughout the year, and the exceeding months’ proportion of Yuan River reaches 58.3%. Compared with the Yuan River, MIN in groundwater of the Li River shows significant temporal and spatial variations owing to the influence of agricultural fertilization. The correlation between the concentrations of MIN and surface water level is poor, while the fitting effect of quadratic correlation between NH4+-N concentration and groundwater depth is the best (R2=0.9384), NO3--N is the next (R2=0.5128), NO2--N is the worst (R2=0.2798). The equation of meteoric water line is δD =7.83δ18O+12.21, indicating that both surface water and groundwater come from atmospheric precipitation. Surface infiltration is the main cause of groundwater NH4+-N pollution. Rainfall infiltration in non-fertilization seasons reduces groundwater nitrogen pollution, while rainfall leaching farming and fertilization aggravate groundwater nitrogen pollution.

The need to understand flow within aquiferous formations for a complete evaluation of groundwater resource and quality control prompts the determination of groundwater velocities through well dilution technique. Well dilution techniques utilize tracer solutions after establishing an initial homogenous condition to monitor the flow rate of ambient groundwater into the wells. Application of dilution techniques in wells makes it feasible to determine the velocities of groundwater in the aquiferous formation surrounding the well. In this study, a simple trigger-tube tracer dilution technique was employed to determine the Darcy and apparent velocities of groundwater in the phreatic aquiferous formation in Bamenda, Cameroon. Eighteen (18) hand dug-wells at different locations within Bamenda were sampled by utilizing sodium chloride (NaCl) as the conservative tracer. Field estimates of groundwater flow velocities in the phreatic aquiferous formation in Bamenda reveal Darcy’s groundwater velocity in the range of 0.39 m/d at Nacho to 130.64 m/d at Foncha Street and apparent velocity in the range of 0.78 m/d at Nacho to 277.86 m/d at Foncha Street. The immense variations in the velocities of groundwater indicate that the groundwater flows at different rates and directions within the aquiferous formation in Bamenda, possibly due to variations in their hydraulic conductivities. Moreover, the spatial variations in the formation types, facies changes, thickness, and layering of the aquiferous formation also contribute to the variation of velocities. Areas with low groundwater velocities are associated with a lower contaminant transport rate when compared to areas with high groundwater velocities. The findings of this study are important for assessing the rates of pollutant movement in the subsurface, as well as the effectiveness and efficacy of the trigger-tube technique in evaluating the hydraulic properties of aquiferous formations.