αrti3d: A Better Workflow for Groundwater Modeling
Groundwater protection and management depend on evolving tools that help scientists synthesize the complexities of subsurface systems alongside changes in contaminant profiles, remediation approaches, and site conditions.
αrti3d is a first-of-its-kind modeling platform that brings together groundwater flow, contaminant transport, and biogeochemical reactions into a single, coordinated workflow. By acting as a coordinating layer, αrti3d is designed to reduce fragmentation that often arises when multiple modeling engines are used for analysis, as well as to streamline model development, calibration, and interpretation.
The Need for Integration
Contaminant behavior is understood through interactions of flow, transport, and biogeochemical processes including sorption, mineral dissolution and precipitation, redox-driven transformations, microbially mediated reactions, and multiphase flow conditions. Evaluating processes separately can obscure interactions that control plume migration, attenuation, and remediation performance.
Reactive transport models provide a quantitative framework for representing coupled processes. Applied thoughtfully, they can clarify plume stability and evolution under changing geochemical conditions, support design in situ remediation applications, assess remedy effectiveness, and estimate restoration time frames.
Historically, applying reactive transport models to real-world aquifers has involved coordinating multiple input datasets, formats, and simulation engines—an often-fragmented approach. This work falls to the practitioners, which can introduce inefficiencies and inconsistencies.
αrti3d is designed to streamline groundwater analysis while maintaining scientific rigor.
Developed by Anchor QEA in collaboration with scientists from the Bordeaux Institute of Technology, αrti3d manages grid configuration, media properties, initial and boundary conditions, reaction definitions, and calibration parameters within a unified framework—linking flow, transport, and geochemistry and simplifying how models are configured and executed as project needs evolve. The powerful built-in post-processing functions facilitate visualizing model output, as well as comparison to observations. This allows practitioners to efficiently build models, simulate scenarios, and view results without getting bogged down.
Bringing flow, transport, chemistry, and model calibration together within a consistent project structure allows practitioners to focus on system behavior and decision‑relevant outcomes rather than navigating multiple software programs.
Grounded in Practice
The development of αrti3d was informed by case studies spanning a range of hydrogeologic and geochemical settings and contaminant challenges.
One case explored PFAS transport in the vadose zone, the portion of the subsurface spanning from the land surface down to the water table. The model compared transport of multiple PFAS compounds, highlighting the importance of sorption to the air-water interface in controlling PFAS downward migration.
Another case involved subsurface injection of reagent solutions in adjacent wells to induce in situ precipitation of layered double hydroxides and formation of a reactive zone for remediation of a multi-metal groundwater plume. The model simulated the bimolecular reaction between the injected species, illustrating how reactive transport processes that are dependent on subsurface mixing can be simulated within the modeling framework to develop efficient injection strategies.
Additional applications included modeling release and attenuation of metals and organic compounds under changing redox conditions near landfill sites, evaluating long-term restoration time frames influenced by secondary sources, developing radial models for aquifer storage recovery, and simulating multiphase reactive transport scenarios relevant to subsurface carbon sequestration.
Across these examples, the emphasis has been on practical application. The objective was to demonstrate how an integrated modeling framework can clarify complex subsurface behavior and support defensible groundwater management strategies.
Stewardship Through Technical Rigor
Refining how models are built, calibrated, and interpreted improves the ability to translate data into meaningful insight. In this sense, advancing modeling practice is an act of groundwater stewardship, supporting decisions that are clearer, more consistent, and more resilient as conditions and understanding change over time.
Applied Reactive Transport Modeling: A 3-Day Short Course
To support broader familiarity of these methods, Principal Scientist, Dimitri Vlassopoulos, PhD, will join Olivier Atteia of the Bordeaux Institute of Technology and Henning Prommer of the University of Western Australia to present a 3-day short course on Applied Reactive Transport Modeling in the Subsurface in Bordeaux, France.
The course covers the fundamentals of reactive transport processes and practical strategies for integrating flow, transport, and geochemistry into numerical models to support analysis of real-world groundwater questions and decision-making.
Anchor QEA’s αrti3d development team includes Dimitri Vlassopoulos, PhD, Principal Scientist and Project Director; Mark Green, Senior Scientist; Deviyani Gurung, PhD, Senior Environmental Professional; Alireza Meyal, Senior Scientist; Brenden Covert, Environmental Professional; and Adrienne Accardi, Project Manager.