2025/12/5
Sina Sadeghfam

Sina Sadeghfam

Academic rank: Associate Professor
ORCID:
Education: PhD.
H-Index:
Faculty: Faculty of Engineering
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E-mail: s.sadeghfam [at] gmail.com
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Research

Title
Quantifying the groundwater total contamination risk using an inclusive multi-level modelling strategy
Type
JournalPaper
Keywords
Integrated risk index, Multiple contaminants, Vulnerability indexing Anthropogenci/geogenic, Multi-level modelling
Year
2023
Journal Journal of Environmental Management
DOI
Researchers Maryam Gharekhani ، Ata allah Nadiri ، Rahman Khatibi ، Mohammad Reza Nikoo ، Rahim Barzegar ، Sina Sadeghfam ، Asghar Asghari Moghaddam

Abstract

This paper investigates aggregated risks in aquifers, where risk exposures may originate from different contaminants e.g. nitrate-N (NO3–N), arsenic (As), boron (B), fluoride (F), and aluminium (Al). The main goal is to develop a new concept for the total risk problem under sparse data as an efficient planning tool for management through the following methodology: (i) mapping aquifer vulnerability by DRASTIC and SPECTR frameworks; (ii) mapping risk indices to anthropogenic and geogenic contaminants by unsupervised methods; (iii) improving the anthropogenic and geogenic risks by a multi-level modelling strategy at three levels: Level 1 includes Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) and Support Vector Machines (SVM) models, Level 2 combines the outputs of Level 1 by unsupervised Entropy Model Averaging (EMA), and Level 3 integrates the risk maps of various contaminants (nitrate-N, arsenic, boron, fluoride, and aluminium) modelled at Level 2. The methodology offers new data layers to transform vulnerability indices into risk indices and thereby integrates risks by a heuristic scheme but without any learning as no measured values are available for the integrated risk. The results reveal that the risk indexing methodology is fit-for-purpose. According to the integrated risk map, there are hotspots at the study area and exposed to a number of contaminants (nitrate-N, arsenic, boron, fluoride, and aluminium).