The overarching goal of Uplift is to develop upscaled models for transport, mixing, and reaction in the vadose zone, rooted in a firm understanding of pore-scale dynamics. The vadose zone is the partially-saturated region connecting the land surface to groundwater, acting as a filter for nutrients and contaminants and controlling their access to aquifers. Reactive transport in partially-saturated porous media is of central importance to our understanding of nutrient cycles and applications such as soil and groundwater remediation. Geological media are heterogeneous across scales, and the simultaneous presence of air and water enhances structural heterogeneity.
Uplift proposes a shift in perspective from empirical parameterization to the development of upscaled models rooted in a firm understanding of pore-scale dynamics. The underlying hypothesis is that a framework capable of quantifying subscale mixing limitations, combined with a coarse field-scale description of flow, can significantly improve current models. This requires a better understanding of pore-scale dynamics under unsaturated conditions, along with a theoretical framework capable of capturing their impact at larger scales. Uplift aims to address these challenges by connecting stochastic models of transport to statistical pore-scale features, and combining them with a novel population dynamics framework for reactive transport connecting effective reaction rates to delays due to transport limitations. To support the theoretical developments and complement available data, resolved simulation tools developed in the project will be employed to assess the role of degree of saturation, pore-scale structure, and transient forcings on phase distribution statistics and solute mixing. The proposed framework and its numerical implementation are expected to result in new reactive transport models for the vadose zone with significantly improved predictive power.
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them. This work is supported by ERC grant (UPlift, 101115760, 10.3030/101115760)
