ABSTRACT
The quantity of recovered water of suitable quality in an ASR operation is defined as the recovery efficiency (RE) and is an important consideration where the receiving groundwater quality is too poor for productive use, and particularly if the supply of source water is limited. Methods to estimate RE are presently not well-advanced, and largely rely on expensive field testing. In this study, two of the principal factors that affect RE were identified from the literature and modelling to be dispersion associated with heterogeneity and displacement of the plume due to regional groundwater flow. Simple dimensionless lumped parameters were devised to describe the relative significance of these two factors. The parameters were applied, with good success, to characterise the results of numerical modelling. The method was less successful when applied to field data from nine ASR sites. The methodology offers some new insight into the processes controlling RE at a theoretical level, but practical application appears to be constrained by the need to know dispersivity, which is not known a priori. This work is ongoing and aims to advance our understanding of RE and its prediction.
