Water Quality Prediction in the Skorpion Mine Pit Lake in Namibia

Abstract

The Bachelor Thesis topic “Water Quality Prediction in the Skorpion Mine Pit Lake in Namibia” firstly focuses on general characteristics and classifications of pit lakes and then on physical conditions of the study area i.e. climatology, geology and hydrogeology. The thesis further presents groundwater and surface water quality of Skorpion Mine, and the water budget of the Pit Lake. A numerical modeling code MODFLOW was used to develop a conceptual model of the Mine Pit. The last part, which is the main objective of this work, is the Pit Lake water quality prediction using geochemical equilibrium modeling, the geochemical model PHREEQC. At the end of the thesis are the results obtained from geochemical modeling, discussion and recommendations, and conclusions.