Development of systems analysis and process control approaches for optimal soil and groundwater remediation

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There are thousands of industry-related facilities in Canada emitting or leaking significant amounts of petroleum hydrocarbons into the subsurface. The sites contaminated by such pollutants could pose serious environmental and health risks, and could also reduce land value and agricultural productivity. Consequently, the effective remediation and management of these contaminated sites have received increasing attentions from many environmental consultants, industries, communities, and governments. This research is designed to address various complexities arising from the optimal remediation of petroleum-contaminated sites through the development of advanced systems analysis and process control approaches. It includes a number of interrelated tasks: (a) to advance the R&D of 3-D numerical models for simulating representative petroleum-contaminated soil and groundwater remediation processes through an integrated experimental and mathematical modeling approach; (b) to develop advanced system optimization methodologies for taking into account nonlinearities, uncertainties, and multi-objective characteristics of site remediation system; (c) to develop innovative process control approaches for optimal site remediation by combining the remediation simulation and optimization models with various information and artificial intelligence technologies, and (d) to apply the developed methods to site remediation case in northern BC. The proposed methodologies allow for systematic consideration of factors and complexities that are related to site remediation, and the development of systems analysis and process control approaches would represent a unique contribution to methodologies for site remediation engineering. By providing effective tools for supporting contaminated-site remediation, this study will be able to bring significant environmental, economic and social benefits to the country, and may lead to spin-off jobs/businesses as a consequence of successful implementation of the newly developed methodologies. In addition, the proposed research will help to attract and train a number of talented students, who will be capable of addressing Canada's future environmental challenges.