Dubrovnik, Croatia

AMIIGA project presented during the 44 Annual Congress of Hydrogeologists

During the 44th IAH congress in Dubrovnik, the Polytechnic of Milan presented AMIIGA and its contribution in the identification both of Point Sources contamination (PS, associated with medium/large dimension sources, i.e. hot-spots) and Multiple Point Sources ones (MPS, constituted by a series of unidentifiable small sources clustered in a large area, that cause a diffuse anthropogenic contamination) in the Functional Urban Area of Milan.

By combining statistical analysis of monitoring data, deterministic mathematical modeling to simulate the shape of PS plumes and stochastic modeling of MPS it was possible to:

• Distinguish among PS (hotspot) and MPS (diffuse) contaminations in urban groundwater
• Assess the plume extension generated by PS and their influence on quality status of downgradient areas
• Estimate the diffuse contamination level with reference to the Italian Law threshold limit (1.1 ug/l), considering dominant cluster summary statistics (Approach 1) or the summary statistic mean related to cluster frequency (Approach 2)

The MPS category predominates in European Functional Urban Areas and cannot be managed with remediation techniques, mainly because of the difficulty to identify the many different source areas that release or that released contaminant mass in the past. AMIIGA is setting up a groundwater management plan that involves also the evaluation of MPS diffuse groundwater contamination in European FUAs.