Fully coupled heat and water dynamics modelling of a reclamation cover for oil sands shale overburden

Numerical models of soil-water dynamics have been widely used in the design of soil cover systems for mine site reclamation; however, in most cases these models only consider water dynamics without consideration of heat dynamics. For cover systems in northern climates, such as those associated with oil sands mines in northern Alberta, Canada, freezing conditions exist for approximately 6 months of the year and snow melt comprises approximately 25% of annual precipitation. This study attempts to assess whether a fully coupled water and heat flow model (CM) provides additional insights into cover performance as compared with a water flow model (FM). The CM and FM are developed for a monitored reclamation cover constructed over oil sands shale overburden. The validated results indicated that the key limitation of the CM was its inability to simulate frozen ground infiltration. This limitation results in an overestimate of snow melt runoff and does not replicate the development of perched conditions on the shale overburden surface as a result of snow melt infiltration. The FM is also unable to simulate the observed infiltration of snow melt deep into the cover when snow melt is represented simply as surface precipitation in early spring following ground thaw. Both models are improved if snow melt infiltration is represented in the model by the preferential filling of macropores across the full depth of the cover and oxidized shale prior to ground thaw. This methodology is incorporated with the CM to produce a coupled water and heat model with enhanced infiltration (CM-EI), and with the FM to produce a flow model with enhanced infiltration (FM-EI). The CM-EI provided an improved simulation of soil temperature dynamics under frozen and unfrozen conditions, as well as soil water dynamics under unfrozen conditions, including the improved representation of the annual water balance components over each water year. Given the small difference in annual water balance components between the CM-EI and FM-EI modelling approaches (∼5 mm/year), it is concluded that a FM-EI provides the best tool with which to assess the performance of these reclamation covers.