RISK-COST DECISION FRAMEWORK FOR AQUIFER REMEDIATION DESIGN

The writers present a framework for increasing the effectiveness of re medial design decisionmaking at ground-water contamination sites where there is uncertainty in many parameters that affect remediation desig n. It is specifically designed for broad, ''big picture'' analyses, su ch as in the preliminary stages of remedial design. The presented fram ework is used to (1) select the best remedial design from a suite of p ossible ones; (2) estimate if additional data collection is cost-effec tive; and (3) determine the most important parameters to be sampled. T he framework is developed by combining elements from Latin-Hypercube s imulation of contaminant transport, economic risk-cost analysis, and r egional sensitivity analysis (RSA). The framework is demonstrated usin g a hypothetical contamination problem where radionuclide strontium (S r-90) is leaching from a trench into the ground water. Three remediati on design alternatives are considered: monitoring only, isolating the source trench, and installing a plume containment and treatment system . Uncertainty in remediation design performance is due to uncertainty in 13 flow and transport parameters including hydraulic conductivity a nd source strength. The methodology can be applied to a variety of rem ediation problems.