Obras Públicas (2)

FOREWORD

Construction practices of underground works, despite being well known, could suffer some problems as mostly are associated with water inflows during the construction. These problems arise due to lack of ground characterization, especially in those areas with highly heterogeneous geology that are associated with unexpected contrasts of permeability or high hydraulic vertical gradients. This is especially significant in urban areas where accurate characterization is more difficult. Therefore, the knowledge of geology and hydrogeology is usually insufficient for an accurate characterization. This is especially important during the construction phase, where the work could be affected by unpredicted events or processes. Therefore, in many cases the adopted solutions do not provide precise remediation of the eventualities bound to water inflows and geomechanical or stability problems. On the one hand, these situations often involve significant overhead. On the other hand, drainage that eventualy occurs associated with regular construction methods may cause a significant impact on aquifers, which ones should try to minimize in any undertaken civil engineering project.

Pumping of large volumes of groundwater to drain tunnels or excavations could lead to management problems. Note that the complexity of geological and hydrogeological terrains makes each solution unique. Hence, it is necessary to determine the best drainage system in each case, taking into account the security aspects and economic impacts.

The Hydrogeology Group (GHS) is a team of Profesors and Researchers of the Departament d'Enginyeria del Terreny, Cartogràfica i Geofísica; UPC (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. BarcelonaTech); and the associated unit of the Institute of Environmental Assessment and Water Research (IDAEA) of the Spanish Council of Scientific Research (CSIC), respectively.

In the UPC is constituted by Full professor (Dr. Emilio Custodio), four Associate professors (Dra. Lucila Candela, Dr. Xavier Sanchez-Vila, Dr. Maarten Saaltink and Dr. Daniel Fernandez), one researcher, two Postdoctoral researchers and a Marie Curie researcher. The group is Unit Associated with the IDAEA (CSIC) (Dr. Jesus Carrera, Dr. Marco Dentz, Dr. Carlos Ayora, Dr. Jordi Cama, Dr. Josep Soler, Dr. Enric Vàzquez-Suñé, Dr. Luit Jan Slooten). There are about 30 Ph.D. students working in the group. 3-4 doctoral theses are read every year and 6 of Masters theses or specialization are defended.

Research of the group concentrates in the characterization of permeable media and the human impact by means of hydraulic, hydrochemical and environmental isotope data. Applications include groundwater resources evaluation, aquifer management, ground pollution control, acid mine drainage, water passive treatment, seawater intrusion, underground waste storage, and vadose zone study. Methods used are both regional and local in scale, of a quantitative nature, using flow and pass transport modeling. One part of the group develops numerical modeling techniques and their part work in data acquisition.

For futher information: www.h2ogeo.upc.es