Processes controlling aqueous concentrations for riverine spills

David E. Hibbs, John S. Gulliver

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

5 Scopus citations

Abstract

The aqueous concentrations of sparingly soluble compounds resulting from oil, fuel, or chemical spills onto rivers predicted by numerical spill models contain an inherent degree of uncertainty due to the inaccuracies, or bias, of the user supplied rate coefficients. Methods for estimating the values of spreading, evaporation, dissolution, volatilization, and longitudinal dispersion coefficients for a small sheltered river are reviewed, and the uncertainties associated with each coefficient are estimated. The uncertainties in the predicted aqueous concentrations are then computed using a concurrently developed riverine spill model for a simulated spill of 10,000 kg of jet fuel. The resulting aqueous concentrations were found to be most sensitive to the saturation concentrations and the dissolution rates, moderately sensitive to the evaporation rates and longitudinal dispersion coefficient, and nearly completely insensitive to the volatilization coefficient.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)57-73
Number of pages17
JournalJournal of Hazardous Materials
Volume64
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 1 1999

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This model was developed with support from a Section 104 grant distributed by the University of Minnesota Water Resources Center, a doctoral dissertation fellowship from the University of Minnesota Graduate School, and the National Science Foundation under grant No. BEES-9522171.

Keywords

  • Aqueous concentrations
  • Dissolution
  • JP-4 jet fuel
  • Riverine spills

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