Abstract—Landfill leachate is a very common environmental
problem that might contaminate underlying soil and
groundwater. This paper investigates the potential leachate of
heavy metals from the landfill site of Rottnest Island in Western
Australia. The heavy metals selected for this study was Copper
and Zinc as high concentration of these metals was found in
Rottnest groundwater. The migration of heavy metal leachate
through the soil profile was modelled using HYDRUS-1D. The
model was developed for site specific conditions of Rottnest
Island landfill site for the period 1996-2010 for different
soil-water-chemical interaction parameters. The results show
that the adsorption coefficient kd (cm3/g) is the most significant
parameter that dominates the heavy metal migration in soil.
The initial concentration also shows significant effect on
leachate contamination. The longitudinal dispersion was found
with moderate significance in solute transport but diffusion
coefficient has no effect on contaminant migration in soil.
However, initial soil moisture and saturated hydraulic
conductivity showed minimum effect on leachate transport in
this landfill site.
Index Terms—Landfill site, heavy metals, leachate,
contamination, soil.
The authors are with the Department of Civil Engineering at Curtin
University, Perth Western Australia (e-mail: f.anwar@curtin.edu.au).
Cite:A. H. M. Faisal Anwar and Larissa Chan Thien, "Investigating Leachate Transport at Landfill Site Using HYDRUS-1D," International Journal of Environmental Science and Development vol. 6, no.10, pp. 741-745, 2015.