Evaluation and validation of vulnerability concepts using a physically based approach

Link to Full Text

Download Full Text

Publication Date

January 2001

Abstract

Starting from the observation that lacks and drawbacks of existing vulnerability methods are strongly related to the fuzzy and ambiguous definitions on which these concepts rely, a more physical point of view of the concept of vulnerability is pro-posed. An applied definition is derived from what actually underlines the concept of groundwater pollution. For intrinsic vulner-ability, three factors describing a pollution by a conservative contaminant are defined : contaminant transfer time, contamination duration and level of concentration reached by the contaminant. These factors are schematically put into a three-dimensional diagram, called the vulnerability cube, which can be used to assess or validate the vulnerability of any point within a given catchment.

Keywords

Groundwater Vulnerability, Physically-Based Methods, Karst

Document Type

Article

Notes

Vol. 13 (2001).

Identifier

SFS0069954_00001

Link to Full Text

Share

 
COinS