Application of GIS in a hazardous remedial action system

When combining a GIS with a distributed parameter hydrological model, the mapping capabilities of the GIS greatly reduce the processing time for data preparation and presentation. GIS data gathering and format transfer between GIS software packages and preparation for numerical hydrological model are both time-consuming tasks. Combing GIS data for groundwater modeling is necessary to support hazardous remedial action system. In order for groundwater flow models to be able to simulate actual aquifer behavior, they must have comprehensive data structures that allow for the utilization of various types of data describing the hydrogeologic conditions of the system. The resourceful data make Geographic Information System (GIS) a valuable tool for use in the development of models because of its ability to create, store, analyze and present necessary data. ModIME is a prepost-processor for the groundwater flow and transport models including MODFLOW, PATH3D and MT3D. It is a self-contained, fully graphical system for designing models specifying data and visualizing model results. The hydrogeologic complexity and detail of some sites necessitate the need for an interface to a batch oriented groundwater simulator. The use of ArcView 3.0 (a GIS package) provides a powerful and efficient means of data preparation and visualization of simulation results. This paper provides the use of ARC/INFO as a bridge of combining data between ModIME and ArcView 3.0. Finding useful GIS data on the Internet and combining the GIS data between ModIME and ArcView 3.0 can provide an efficient pathway to executive the model. Overlaying and analyzing the model output such as groundwater flows of transport contamination on to the GIS data such as land use and land cover will be a very useful tool for supporting a guidance in remedial action system.