Heliyon (Jan 2023)
Use of the repeated integral transformation method to describe the transport of solute in soil
Abstract
Predicting the fate and transport of contaminants in soil or groundwater systems using analytical or numerical models is crucial for environmental researchers. While the analytical models are a flexible approach to quantifying the subsurface contamination and remediation because they are non-susceptible to numerical dispersions, economical and handier; two-dimensional analytical models that describe a bilateral flow coupled with both sink and decay factors are rarely reported. Motivated by the case of a non-bare soil ridge with constant point-solute source lying internally but parallel to the longitudinal flow direction, a (2 + 1) dimensional Advection-Diffusion-Reaction Equation (ADRE) of bilateral flow coupled with the linear sorption, decay, and sink is formulated to model the transport of dissolved solute in a homogenous and isotropic non-fractured porous medium. Then, a brief review of exact and analytical methods for solving the ADRE is conducted to establish the right solution methods. The Repeated Integral Transformation Method (RITM) is employed to derive the approximate analytical solutions for the formulated model, maintaining the model's original terms for the efficient sensitivity analysis. The RITM uses Laplace and Fourier transforms with a wide range of computed results. We compare the approximate solutions with numerical simulations in COMSOL to verify the accuracy of the approximate analytical models. Then, the application of the solutions is demonstrated through a systematic analysis of the effect on solute transport of advection-diffusion, reaction, sorption, retardation, sink, and pore water velocity. Results show that the presence of sink, mimicked by plant-root uptake activity, and decay tend to reduce the solute concentration in the medium. While both the retardation and sorption factors affect the movement of the dissolved solutes, water content and pore-water velocity promote the spreading of dissolved solutes. Solute concentration in the medium increases at low Peclet numbers, signifying the influence of diffusive coefficients. The current proposed RITM-based solutions can characterize contamination in the soil, and should be useful to environmental researchers.
