| Summary: | Threats from landfill leachate leakage to groundwater quality in remote areas is a major concern globally. Buffering distance (BFD) maintained between landfill site and groundwater supply wells is important to prevent drinking water from contamination of hazardous pollutant. Ignoring the leakage increase in the end of landfill life leads to an underestimate of BFD demand, posing potential threat to drinking safety. This paper constructs a framework for BFD prediction with the consideration of landfill performance degradation by coupling landfill performance evaluation model with the aging and defect evolution model of landfill engineering materials, and carries out model application and verification in a coastal hazardous waste landfill. The results show that during the life cycle of a landfill, its BFD experienced a 1.5-time increase from the start of its operation to its life end and reached 3000 m. Under the condition of landfill performance degradation, the BFDs required to attenuate heavy metals experience more increase than those of organic pollutants; BFD required for zinc (Zn), for example, increases 720 m over the no-degradation condition, while 2,4-dichlorophenol(2,4-D) increases by only 288 m. Considering the uncertainty sourced from model parameter and structure, the BFD should be more than 4050 m to ensure long-term safe drinking under unfavorable conditions such as large amount of leachate, weak degradation and fast diffusion of pollutant in vadose and aquifer. If the BFD cannot meet the demand at the end of the landfill life, the leaching behavior of solid waste can be controlled to reduce it depending on BFD. For example, when the leaching concentration of Cd in the waste is reduced from 0.6 mg/L to 0.17 mg/L, the buffering distance is be reduced from 3000 m to 500 m.
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