Monitored natural attenuation (MNA) or enhanced natural attenuation (ENA) are the most economical and energy-efficient remediation technologies. They can reduce expenses by harnessing and directly stimulating naturally occurring biodegradation processes. Once these active processes have been identified and quantified, the task of pollutant elimination can be carried out by microorganisms instead of expensive technical services. However, it is important to carefully characterise in situ biodegradation processes and deliver clear lines of evidence for their dominance.
Isotope monitoring will deliver significant evidence for biodegradation in a contaminant plume. Since biodegradation of the most important contaminants is always accompanied by isotope fractionation, a quantifiable time-course of biodegradation is stored in the isotope data. A single comparison of source-contaminant isotopic signatures with the plume zone will allow us to determine if biodegradation has taken place since the contaminanting incident occurred. This important information will be obtained rapidly, within a few weeks.
Natural attenuation is a low-cost strategy for groundwater remediation, but you must be able to provide evidence that in situ remediation has occurred. Customers as well as environmental authorities support MNA or ENA remediation concepts that are based on isotope monitoring. By making an investment of several thousand Euros (€) to obtain isotopic proof of biodegradation, long-term remediation costs may be reduced by up to 90%.
Our professional expertise in monitored or enhanced natural attenuation provides not only improved risk assessment and effective remediation concepts, but also efficient implementation of biological in situ remediation technologies (ENA). Moreover, identification of isotopic fingerprints for contaminants enables us to discriminate and localize different contaminant sources within complex environments. Environmental forensics will potentially allow us to identify culpable polluters.