Screening model for the contamination of a well in a uniform flow field

Explicit solutions are developed for the steady state concentration of a contaminant at a water supply well, because of a continuous source within the capture zone. The solutions are based on the streamline equation for a well in a uniform flow field [Todd, 1959] and account for the dilution of contaminated waters at the well where streamlines are converging. Integration along a streamline also yields expressions for the travel time and distance to the well, which may be used to calculate the concentration of an exponentially decaying contaminant. In a sensitivity analysis with fixed source location, travel times decrease with higher values of hydraulic conductivity down to-a minimum value. This minimum is given by a hydraulic conductivity just under the limiting value that places the source on the capture zone boundary.