by Gary Stevens, P.G.
Analytical groundwater contaminant models have often been completed using the Domenico solution because of its relatively simple mathematics and easy incorporation into spreadsheets. The Domenico’s vertical contaminant source orientation along with other model assumptions limits the practical implementation and requires careful consideration of the results. The horizontal plane solution (HPS) is an alternate analytical model that does not have the limitations of the Domenico solution but the results are derived iteratively and are more computationally complex and demanding. Galya (1987) derived an analytical solution and FORTRAN 77 program to solve for contaminant concentrations using the HPS. In order to make Galya’s analytical solution easier to use I recompiled the FORTRAN 77 program into Fortran 90 and created a Graphical User Interface, written in Python, for easier input of aquifer and contaminant characteristics and visualization of the output. The results are displayed in both a table format and as a contaminant concentration contour map. In addition, the results can be exported as either a pdf or GeoTIFF that can be imported into GIS software. For anyone who is interested, the HPS Python/Fortran source codes, executable and documentation is available to download at https://github.com/GWModels/HPS-Model. Questions or comments can be submitted through Github.
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