Point source contaminations origin from historic or current activities and occur in a variety of forms, extents and contaminants involved (e.g. landfills, industrial facilities, storage tanks, disposal of hazardous waste). Point source contaminations may pose risks to human health and the environment; it is therefore important to develop/improve current methodologies to assess the migration potential of contaminants in groundwater. Groundwater quality monitoring around contaminated sites is typically done by sampling piezometers. Modelling approaches can help to predict the spatial and temporal evolution of contamination plumes, design remediation strategies and assess health and environmental risks. Reactive transport models can potentially improve the prediction of contaminant routes, as they explicitly account for changing geochemical environments and chemical reactions during transport. In spite of recent advances, real-world applications remain scarce as these require large numbers of site-specific parameters. The aim of the RESPONSE project is to improve the use of reactive transport models that simulate the fate of inorganic and organic contaminants in soils and groundwater. More specifically, this project aims to (1) identify the minimum amount of site-specific parameters needed to predict reactive transport of inorganic pollutants (e.g. heavy metals) and (2) improve/simplify the modelling of transport of xenobiotic organic contaminants (XOC, e.g. hydrocarbons and pesticides). The transport of XOCs is particularly complex to model due to the effects and zonation of microbial activity at the plume fringe in polluted aquifers. The RESPONSE project focusses on typical groundwater pollution problems encountered around old municipal landfill sites and cemeteries. Municipal landfills can still release hazardous pollutants such as heavy metals and XOCs, even if they are covered by fresh ground layers after abandonment. Cemeteries can be considered a special case of landfill, releasing various compounds to the environment such as arsenic, mercury, bacteria, viruses and herbicides. Both location types are potential point sources for mixed groundwater pollution, typically including high concentrations of dissolved organic carbon (DOC), heavy metals and XOCs. The methodology in this project involves both experimental and modelling aspects. During the first screening stage, groundwater samples have been collected from shallow piezometers at fifteen contaminated sites (municipal landfills and cemeteries) across Belgium. Also, an improved reactive transport model is built based on HYDRUS1D-MODFLOW-PHREEQC to explicitly account for the dynamic behaviour of chemical conditions at the soil-ground water interface. Next, based on laboratory analyses, three case-study sites will be selected for further modelling and testing.
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The Cistercian abbey of Villers-la-Ville, situated between Brussels, Charleroi and Namur in Belgium, was founded in the 12th century and abandoned after the French Revolution at the end of the 18th century. The construction, architecture and distribution of buildings, courtyard and gardens of the abbey are recognized as very remarkable and exceptional. The site has also been classified as historical monument and remarkable site in 1972. The ruins of the abbey of Villers-la-Ville has been excavated for a long time. Since the end of the 19th century, it has been punctually excavated by some architects and religious. However, all of these results have never been published. It is only from 1985 that, thanks to the work of the Governance of Buildings to the consolidation of the ruins of the abbey, ongoing and regular excavations are undertaken. Indeed, since then, the History Center of Architecture and Building assumes an archaeological mission to support this project and since 1988 the Archaeological Service of Wallonia has excavated many parts of the site. While most of these excavations concern the architecture of buildings, for their restoration and rehabilitation, none of them, up to now, was interested in the period before and during the settlement: Why did the monks choose this site? How was the natural environment when they arrived? And how the abbey’ settlement affect this environment? To answer this question, several archaeobotanical analyses (pollen, fruit and seeds, wood and wood charcoal) have been undertaken for the first time in two different sectors of the abbey. The samples come from mechanical deep coring which have recently been done at the Gate of Brussels, the main gatehouse situated at the western part of the abbey, and at the former major mill situated more at the south.
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