Dawit Bekele (PhD Student)
University of South Australia

Project Title
A modular vapour intrusion model for effective management and remediation of hydrocarbon contaminated sites

Biography
Dawit is a PhD student  at the Centre for Enviromental Risk Assessment and Remedation (CERAR), and is jointly sponsored by UPS and CRC CARE. He studied for his first degree in civil engineering at Addis Ababa University Faculty of Technology, Ethiopia, and pursued his Masters Degree in water resource management at the University of Luneburg, Germany. He has 5 years of work experience in civil construction design and supervison. Prior to commencing his PhD studies with CERAR in 2009l, he worked as research assistant at the University of Luneburg. Dawit’s current research interests include:

• hydrology
• risk assessments and site screening at contaminated sites
• indoor air pollutions
• numerical modelling of hydrocarbon plumes at industrial sites
• sampling and assessments of volatile hydrocarbons in soils, groundwater and soil-gas
• site characterisation and conceptual model development, and
• contaminated site management.

Start Date
April 2009

Project Details
This project aims to develop a numerical simulation model to predict the transport and fate of volatile organic chemicals in unsaturated and heterogeneous soil, as the volatile compounds move from the subsurface zone into built structures. In particular, the project will investigate the attenuation of volatiles in the unsaturated zone at molecular level, and use this information to upgrade the existing vapour transport model 'J&E vapour model'.   

The newly-developed modular vapour transport simulation model will help site managers/decision makers to review and recommend the redevelopment of contaminated sites for appropriate purposes, in accordance with health-based screening levels (HSLs), and decide the need for contamination remediation.