Shallow Geothermal Energy: from the Ground to Buildings, from the Field to Modelling

The course is held over two weeks and aims at providing advance knowledge on the mathematical modeling of biochemical compounds in subsurface water systems, with emphasis on saturated porous and fractured media. In the first week, the focus is on flow and conservative transport modeling. In the second week, the focus is on reactive transport modeling. Specific topics that will be addressed include: calculation of water and mass budgets in aquifers; flow rates estimation and predictions in aquifers; simulation of pumping wells in homogeneous and heterogeneous aquifers; contamination modelling and risk assessment; interaction of water, solutes and hosting solid background simulated by multicomponent reactive transport, multi-permeability and multi-porosity models; introduction to stochastic analysis in hydrogeological applications; use of stochastic models to evaluate risk; calculation of engineering risks; calculations of socio-economical and health risk. During the course, examples based on real-life and synthetic case studies will be addressed. The participants will conduct individual modeling analysis using her/his own computer. The course adopts open-source software operating on Windows XP/7/8/10 OS.