Simulation of groundwater flow and solute transport behaviour in fractured aquifer systems is of major importance when considering waste disposal sites (legacies, permanent waste diposals). In the present project, combined modelling approaches will be applied to the mathematical description of the above named problem. The aim is to avoid the disadvantages of the often used concept of coupling elements of different dimensions for fracture and matrix (flux is not necessarily continuous at fracture - matrix interface).

To guarantee local flux continuity at the fracture - matrix interface fractures and matrix will be discretized with elements of the same dimension. In fractures respectively fracture networks degenerated elementes are admitted. Each module of the model concept has to be robust with respect to vanishing fracture widths (reduced problem). Additionally, different discretization techniques will be employed for fracture and matrix to account for the heterogeneous behaviour of the physical processes in fracture und matrix