Groundwater Protection using Numerical Simulations Applied to the Carbonate Aquifer Resource in the Augusta's Industrial Area (Sicily, Italy)

Simulation of flow in fractured aquifers is a complex issue. The problem of mathematical modeling of highly heterogeneous porous media, typical of natural systems, couples with the needs making proper simplifying assumptions and approximations. In this kind of groundwater systems, studying contamination spreading and analyzing risk are challenging tasks. The main difficulty stems from determining both the travel times and the maximum distances covered by pollutants. In this context, the risk of contamination in the deep carbonate aquifer of the Augusta coastal area is presented. We used a geostatistical approach and numerical codes (MODFLOW-2000, MT3DMS) to reconstruct the complex geological framework of the study area where several contamination scenarios of hypothetical point source in a risk assessment framework were simulated. Results on the contaminant spreading are discussed and the effect of the geological structures characterizing the zone under study, namely horst and graben, are described.