15-16.11.2016
Milan, Italy

WPT1 kickoff meeting and CSIA first internship

Politecnico di Milano organized two days meeting in Milan (Italy) to present and discuss the tools to be used during project development. Partners from Italy, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovenia and Croatia attended the meeting.

WP1 kick-off meeting took place in Politecnico di Milano, Italy, on 15th October 2016. WPT1 is dedicated to “tools for groundwater pollution assessment and remediation in FUAs”;  during the meeting it was discussed how the tools developed by the FOKS project (Central Europe 2007-2013) -  IPT-Integral Pumping Tests and MAGIC software for IPT interpretation, Fingerprinting, Gnostic tool and modeling/backtracking - will be improved, adapted and developed to the larger scale of FUAs. In particular the new tools, to identify groundwater contaminant sources, were presented: 1) tool for statistical and geostatistical methods (cluster analysis, multivariate analysis); 2) modelling tool (inverse iterative simulations); 3) Integral Pumping Tests amended with the tool CSIA; 4) innovative tools developed as CSIA and BMTs. Moreover, webGIS tool development, for groundwater database management and open-access consultation, will offer means to access spatial information online. The webGIS will be implemented for each FUA to share data and information between partners and to improve internal and external communications. Partners shared WPT1 workplan and methodologies. 

On 16th of November, Compound-Specific Isotope Analysis (CSIA) first internship took place in Milan. Partners from Italy, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovenia and Croatia were present, as well as representative of associated partners from Italy (Municipality of Milan, Regione Lombardia). 

The training session, with special participation of Prof. Aravena, offered analytical and applicative expertise on CSIA. The objective was to present information on the use of isotope data, particularly CSIA for characterization and remediation assessment of contaminated sites by chlorinated solvents and hydrocarbons, but not only.

Stable Isotope including Specific Isotope Analysis (CSIA) are probably one of the most growing tool applied in contaminant studies. The short presentation was designed to show the potential for the use of isotope data for characterization, especially for source appointments and fate of contaminants, and for remediation performance assessment for a broad range of biological (natural and enhanced) treatments. In the last decade, CSIA have been extensively applied to many contaminated sites and the outcome proved to be highly successful. Most previous studies heavily relied on ¹³C-CSIA, however, most of the recent investigations have been employing additional ³⁷Cl and ²H-CSIA. The recent interest in the two dimensional isotope approach (¹³C and ³⁷Cl) or in some cases three dimensional isotope approach (¹³C, ³⁷Cl and ²H) is driven by advancements in the analytical methodologies, laboratory evidences, and also field applications that demonstrated the added value of multiple - CSIA in contaminant studies. Firstly, a short introduction about theory and background, and then extended presentation of several field case studies, with a special focus on the latest advancements in combining ¹³C, ³⁷Cl and ²H-CSIA, were presented and discussed.