Sources of Chloride and its Impact on Groundwater

Road salting, like any other activity that could significantly disturb the groundwater, has the potential to adversely affect the quality of groundwater within the vicinity of the road salt operations. Contamination of groundwater has been growing incessantly particularly due to road salt applications. Once the groundwater system gets contaminated, cleaning and redemption is costly. This study provides the current state-of-the-art knowledge on interactions between road salting and the environment. This will include the sources of chloride and its effects on the soil, vegetation, and shallow groundwater. In particular, this study analyzes the transport and transport processes related to propagation of chloride from road salt into adjacent groundwater resources. This work also presents the development of a conceptual, mathematical and numerical model of groundwater flow and solute transport by employing software packages, in particular GMS (Groundwater Modelling System).