By:
Dr.
Edward
Sudicky,
Chair,
Waterloo
Earth
Sciences
Department.
One of the difficulties in evaluating or quantifying groundwater contamination is that it is underground . . . hence, difficult and costly to get at. One way to minimize the cost would be to develop a reliable computer model that would serve as a guide, indicating what is taking place.
Over the years there has been a dramatic improvement in the accuracy and reliability of the models hydrogeologists use to shed light on the subject. As recently as 15 years ago this kind of modelling was at a relatively crude stage. Indeed, the computers of the time would not permit the development of highly complex models. For the most part researchers were confined to using two-dimensional rather than three dimensional models, and to using limited data to describe the interactions between the various processes involved. Since then, Waterloo's Department of Earth Sciences has won considerable renown for its modelling accomplishments.
One of a core of Waterloo modelling pioneers is Dr. Edward A. Sudicky. Dr. Sudicky completed his first degree (Bachelor of Applied Science, Civil Engineering) at the University of Waterloo in 1977. As a co-operative student he spent two four-month work terms with Dr. Grahame Farquhar, an Engineering Professor whose research interests relate to water resources, and two with Drs. John Cherry and Emil Frind, Department of Earth Sciences.
"The work terms stimulated a continuing interest in groundwater problems," he recalls. "After graduation I enrolled in and completed a Master of Science degree in Earth Sciences and, in 1983, a Ph.D."
In 1983 he was awarded the Science Faculty's prestigious Pearson Medal for outstanding graduate research. Dr. Sudicky became a faculty member with the Department of Earth Sciences in 1985, retaining an NSERC research fellowship.
Early on, he had become keenly interested in modelling the migration of contaminants through groundwater. His research included field studies undertaken to confirm and support his models. Over the years this activity has resulted in the development of more than a dozen copyright software packages . . . analytical and finite element models that describe groundwater flow and subsurface chemical migration.
He was appointed a full professor, Earth Sciences, in 1994; that same year he was also invited by the Association of Groundwater Scientists and Engineers to deliver the Henry Darcy Distinguished Lecture.
Dr. Sudicky continues to be involved in a large number of projects; from these, three-dimensional models have resulted including models for both porous and fractured geological materials. These are in use today in research . . . helping users understand fundamental chemical and physical interconnections that occur in the subsurface during migration. Some are used by industry to solve practical groundwater problems.
One accomplishment that most pleases Dr. Sudicky has to do with the number of his former students who now occupy faculty posts . . . at the University of Ottawa, Alberta, New Brunswick, Ohio State and l'Université Laval.
He and Dr. Peter Forsyth, Department of Computer Science, Waterloo, are the co-developers of the CompFlow model, a sophisticated three-dimensional flow and transport model used to account for DNAPL migration in the subsurface, and to predict optimal strategies for its removal. (DNAPL is a term applied to a variety of dense liquids including chlorinated solvents, which are of considerable ecological concern.) CompFlow is being used by Gartner Lee, environmental consultants. One current application is at Smithville, Ont., where PCB contamination exists.
Currently, one of Dr. Sudicky's graduate students, Kelly Slough, is revising CompFlow to cover situations involving discrete fractured networks. Another student is developing a model to examine the physical and geochemical factors that control how karst aquifers (involving underground caves that develop over very long periods of time as carbonate rocks dissolve in groundwater) are generated. A third student is developing a model to describe transport by both ground and surface water.
Recognition and honors that have accrued to Dr. Sudicky include his election as President, International Commission on Groundwater, International Association of Hydrological Sciences; he is also chief editor, Journal of Contaminant Hydrogeology and associate editor, Advances in Groundwater Resources. He served on NSERC's grants selection committee (for groundwater) from 1991 to 1994.