Land & Water Quality

Overview

The purpose of the course is to develop an introduction to the theoretical and practical strategies used for assessing and managing the quality of soils and water. This module will start with an introduction to risk assessment and management using a tiered approach, including a discussion of the source-pathway-receptor model that will subsequently be applied to assessing and managing water and land contamination.

The land quality aspect of the course will consider the regulatory drivers for assessing and managing contaminated land and provide an overview of the UK approach (CLR11) for assessing and managing land contamination. Students will learn how to identify and connect potential contaminants of concern, receptors that may be at risk and pathways within a conceptual model of the site during the preliminary qualitative risk assessment. They will study how these linkages are refined through the stages of qualitative risk assessment (generic and detailed) and remediation options appraisal and implementation. This will include an introduction to how quantitative data is collected at the site (representative sampling strategies and laboratory analysis), an overview of remediation technologies and how they can be compared and assessed, and an introduction to verification and validation of land remediation.

The water quality aspect of the module will consider an introduction to groundwater chemistry and the key processes underlying the fate and transport of contaminants in the water environment.

Learning Objectives

On completion of the course you should:

• Have knowledge and understanding of the legislative framework for protecting and improving the quality of land and water.
• Have knowledge and understanding of site walk over surveys and sampling/monitoring strategies for soil and soil gas.
• Have understanding of the application and derivation of Generic Assessment Criteria and other tools for assessing quality of soils and groundwater.
• Have understanding of the implementation of options appraisal using sustainability metrics, remediation strategies, and plans for contaminated soils and groundwater.
• Have knowledge and understanding of the verification of remediation of soils and groundwater.
• Have knowledge and understanding of key principles of groundwater chemistry.
• Have knowledge and understanding of main processes governing the fate & transport of contaminants in the water environment.
• Apply the Source, Pathway, Receptor model and pollutant linkages for contaminated land to synthesize preliminary risk assessments in the form of desk studies.
• Define, apply and formulate conceptual models.
• Create decision records arising from preliminary risk assessments.
• Apply decisions from preliminary risk assessments to designing both non intrusive and intrusive methods of site investigations as well as to assessing health and safety considerations.
• Apply, formulate, create and interrogate Detailed Quantitative Risk Assessments.
• Undertake options appraisals of risk management solutions.
• Identify key chemical properties of groundwater systems and rock-water interactions.
• Identify key processes underlying contaminant fate & transport in the water environment.

Skills

On completion of the course you should be able to:

• Create and evaluate qualitative and quantitative conceptual models for contaminated land.
• Perform preliminary risk assessments to a standard required by a regulator.
• Use the outcomes of preliminary risk assessments to undertake decision making relating to health and safety risks and the requirement for further investigations/remediation.
• Apply conceptual models to develop sampling strategies for contaminated land.
• Perform basic detailed quantitative risk assessments.
• Correctly apply, interrogate and make decisions based on industry standard risk assessment models.
• Evaluate remediation options and make decisions on remediation strategies.
• Evaluate hydrochemical data in the context of varying groundwater environments.

You will also be able to demonstrate the following:

• The ability to learn independently.
• The ability to solve non-routine problems.
• The ability to solve some general problems through systematic analysis.
• Technical report writing.
• Evaluate critically scientific and trade literature.

Assessment

None