Modeling the fate of viruses in aquifers

Modeling the fate of viruses in aquifers: multi-kinetics reactive transport, risk assessment, and governing parameters

Rafini, Silvain (Université du Québec)
Chesnaux, Romain (Université du Québec)
Lompe, K.M. (TU Delft Sanitary Engineering)
Barbeau, Benoit (Polytechnique Montreal)
Claveau-Mallet, Dominique (Polytechnique Montreal)
Richard, Dominique (Université du Québec)

2023

The transport of viruses in groundwater is a complex process controlled by both hydrodynamic and reaction parameters. Characterizing the transport of viruses in groundwater is of crucial importance for investigating health risks associated with groundwater consumption from private individual or residential pumping wells. Setback distances between septic systems, which are the source of viruses, and pumping wells must be designed to offer sufficient groundwater travel times to allow the viral load to degrade sufficiently to be acceptable for community health needs. This study consists of developing numerical simulations for the reactive transport of viruses in the subsurface. These simulations are validated using published results of laboratory and field experiments on virus transport in the subsurface and applying previously developed analytical solutions. The numerical model is then exploited to investigate the sensitivity of the fate of viruses in saturated porous media to hydraulic parameters and the coefficients of kinetic reactions. This sensitivity analysis provides valuable insights into the prevailing factors governing health risks caused by contaminated water in private wells in rural residential contexts. The simulations of virus transport are converted into health risk predictions through dose–response relationships. Risk predictions for a wide range of input parameters are compared with the international regulatory health risk target of a maximum of 10−4 infections/person/year and a 30 m setback distance to identify critical subsurface contexts that should be the focus of regulators.

Transport of viruses
Aquifers
Septic system
Pumping well
Setback distance
Multi-kinetics reactive transport

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:e276c3bb-145b-4b30-9d02-f925a8081870

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.166276

2024-02-19

0048-9697

Science of the Total Environment, 903

Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.

Institutional Repository

journal article

© 2023 Silvain Rafini, Romain Chesnaux, K.M. Lompe, Benoit Barbeau, Dominique Claveau-Mallet, Dominique Richard