Adaptive Long-Term Monitoring at BP Environmental Restoration Sites

In partnership with BP, Summit Envirosolutions, Inc. has developed a unique set of software tools for reducing costs and improving effectiveness of long-term monitoring (LTM) through adaptive assessment to achieve remediation goals. There are four components which comprise the software toolset. The first component, EPIPHINY®, is a database platform which gives the user the ability to quickly import and analyze analytical sampling data. The second, ModelBuilder^TM, creates and visualizes geostatistical models of spatial and temporal data, and identifies areas of significant data uncertainty which may benefit from additional sampling. The third, SampleOptimizer^TM, identifies redundant sampling locations and frequencies in historical data in preparation for future sampling events. SampleTracker^TM, the fourth component, enables users to create time-dependent site-wide remediation targets (e.g., expected reductions in mass) or well-specific targets (e.g., expected concentration trends) and to evaluate new data relative to those targets, as well as providing automated alerts of unexpected deviations. This paper presents the long-term monitoring optimization (LTMO) results for two BP case study sites. The results are presented in the form of tradeoff curves associated with competing objectives: 1) minimizing the number of sampling locations; and 2) minimizing the maximum interpolation errors at all sampling locations which were recommended to be removed, as well as comparative visualizations showing the site concentrations before and after optimization.