On the Inclusion of Some Biological Impacts and Influences in Coupled Transport Phenomena in Unsaturated Soil

This paper presents a first attempt at the inclusion of some biological impacts and influences in the authors’ continued research on coupled transport phenomena through unsaturated porous media. The work presented here forms an extension to an existing coupled Thermo-Hydraulic-Chemical–Mechanical Model (THCM) to include the biological aspects, as a first attempt towards a new THCMB framework. The biological model incorporates biodegradation kinetics of organic substrates and resultant effects in the inorganic geochemistry. In order to achieve this, the biological aspects of the model are coupled to an equilibrium geochemical model following a two-step partial equilibrium approach. Additionally, of concern in contaminant/pollutant transport studies, including the biological aspects, is the effect on human health. This paper therefore also presents some aspects of a health impact analysis model adopted in this study.