CE 499: Applied Contaminant Transport Modeling
Instructor
Felipe de Barros, Assistant Professor, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering
Office: KAP 224B
E-mail: fbarros@usc.edu
Telephone: 213-740-6130
Topics
Introduction to contaminant transport in the environment (surface and subsurface flows); Mass
balance equations; Basic transport phenomena (advection, molecular diffusion, dispersion);
Chemical reactions & radioactive decay; Transport in rivers and streams; Transport in aquifers;
Fundamentals of groundwater hydrology (soil properties, Darcy’s Law, governing equations);
human health risk assessment; uncertainty quantification and probabilistic risk analysis; flow
heterogeneity and mixing.
Objectives
1) Learn fundamentals of contaminant transport modeling in surface water and groundwater.
Understand the consequences of pollutants in the environment and human health.
2) Understand basic physical and chemical transport processes affecting contaminants in surface
and subsurface water environments
3) To become familiar with the use of statistical and probability analysis for risk assessment
4) To become experienced with modeling techniques commonly used in hydrological and
hydrogeological applications
5) Develop basic coding skills to perform simulations and predict the magnitude, extension and
impact of contaminants in the environment
6) Develop a systematic modeling approach to solve environmental, health and sustainability
issues.
Textbook
Chemical Fate and Transport in the Environment, Hemond & Fechner-Levy, Academic Press; 2
edition (September 21, 1999)
Other references
Mixing in inland and coastal waters. Fischer et al., Elsevier, 1979.
Hydraulics of Groundwater, Jacob Bear, 1979 (Dover books on Engineering).
Suggested Preparation
CE 309 – Fluid Mechanics, or equivalent. Some coding experience (you are free to use any
computational software that you are familiar with, e.g., Matlab, Mathematica, Maple, Fortran,
C++, etc.)
Grading
Midterm Exam (25%), Homework (25%), Final Project (50%)
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CE 499 Applied Contaminant Transport Modeling
Week 1:
Introduction to contaminant transport and its importance
in the environment; Practical problems.
Week 8:
Contaminant transport in groundwater; sources of
contaminants in the subsurface; soil properties
Week 2:
Week 9:
Chemical concentration; mass balance (conservation law) Connectivity, anisotropy, homogeneity; Groundwater
flow equation; Introduction to contaminant transport in
groundwater (con’t)
Week 3:
Basic fluid mechanics
Week 10:
Contaminant transport in groundwater; Aquifer
Week 4:
remediation (con’t);
Diffusion, advection and dispersion
Week 5:
Diffusion, advection and dispersion (con’t). Exam
Review.
Week 6:
Contaminant transport in surface water (rivers).
Week 7:
Contaminant transport in surface water (rivers) (con’t)
Week 11:
Exam Review. Midterm Exam.
Week 12:
Uncertainty quantification (review of statistics).
Week 13:
Probabilistic human health risk analysis; Monte Carlo
simulations
Week 14: Mixing and heterogeneity.
Week 15: Interactions between surface water and
groundwater
Week 16: Project Presentations
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