Optimal groundwater management: 2. Application of simulated annealing to a field-scale contamination site

Simulated annealing is used to analyze alternate design strategies for groundwater remediation at a contaminated field site. The simulated annealing optimization algorithm is combined with a field‐scale flow and transport simulation model for an unconfined aquifer to determine nearly optimal pumping schedules for a pump‐and‐treat remediation system at a proposed Superfund site in central California. A series of demonstration problems is presented using two different optimization formulations. The results of these experiments indicate that the method can be applied to realistic groundwater management problems. The computational expense of simulated annealing is large yet comparable to other nonlinear optimization techniques. A practical empirically based strategy is provided for selecting and adjusting the parameters necessary for successful optimization.