Robust decision analysis for environmental management of groundwater contamination sites

摘要

In contrast to many other engineering fields, the uncertainties in subsurfaceprocesses (e.g., fluid flow and contaminant transport in aquifers) and theirparameters are notoriously difficult to observe, measure, and characterize.This causes severe uncertainties that need to be addressed in any decisionanalysis related to optimal management and remediation of groundwatercontamination sites. Furthermore, decision analyses typically rely heavily oncomplex data analyses and/or model predictions, which are often poorlyconstrained as well. Recently, we have developed a model-drivendecision-support framework (called MADS; http://mads.lanl.gov) for themanagement and remediation of subsurface contamination sites in which severeuncertainties and complex physics-based models are coupled to performscientifically defensible decision analyses. The decision analyses are based onInformation Gap Decision Theory (IGDT). We demonstrate the MADS capabilities bysolving a decision problem related to optimal monitoring network design.