Mapping and estimation of contaminated volumes using geostatistics

“Very good training associating an academic statistics approach with practical examples and a very good organization, knowledge, and communication of the trainer. This very useful training will increase our expertise in polluted site management and help us to find the best way for the best remediation works.”
Philippe Monier – Technical Manager, Refining and Chemical Department – Retia/Total

• Understand and master the use of geostatistics solutions to characterize chemical pollution or radiological contamination.
• Generate robust contamination maps, with a quantified level of accuracy.
• Objectively delineate the impacted areas and quantify the uncertainty level associated with estimated volumes.

• Half of the course is devoted to methodological presentations, the second half to practical exercises on real-life cases to deepen the understanding of concepts. The focus is on illustrations and practical contributions of the covered concepts.
• Computer exercises with Kartotrak.
• Course material provided.

Engineers, technicians, consultancies, project owners, prime contractors, public bodies, industrial operators who wish a practical introduction to the geostatistical methods for pollution/contamination characterization.

Day 1: Analyse data and their variability in space

• Better understand pollution data and put them back in their environmental context: taking into account historical and contextual data (lithology, aerial views, Digital Elevation Model, etc.) and 2D/3D visualization.
• Validate data: use of statistical methods for data analysis and quality control (correlations, histograms, etc.).
• Understand the concept of spatial variability and the operational implications for the feasibility of some cleanup methods.
• Quantify the spatial variability of a pollutant: calculation, interpretation, and modeling of the variogram.

Day 2: Pollution/contamination mapping

• Discover usual interpolation methods and their limits of application.
• Understand the principles and properties of 2D and 3D kriging and implement the technique for a rigorous mapping of the pollution/contamination.
• Use kriging results to identify the areas which require further characterization.
• Go further with multivariate geostatistics.

Day 2: Quantify contaminated soil volumes

• Understand the difference between kriging and conditional simulations: why simulations are essential to a rigorous analysis of the uncertainties.
• Learn how to implement conditional simulations to:
  – Generate probability maps of exceeding a regulatory threshold (2D/3D).
  –  Generate distribution curves of the surface/volume of soil requiring remediation according to the risk of exceeding a given threshold.
  – Calculate the pollutant mass from soil density and pollutant concentration.
• Derive the surface, volume, and mass of soil requiring remediation according to the ‘’Pareto-Sol’’ principle.
• Generate the excavation maps from 3D interpolated contamination maps.
• Compare the efficiency of the different cleanup scenarii.

This course does not require prior knowledge in geostatistics. Some basic knowledge of statistics is an asset.

This course can also be followed by an “à la carte” workshop based on your data.