Fundamentals of Environmental Transport and Fate

Understanding how substances, energy, and pollutants move through water, air, and soil is crucial for effective environmental engineering, resource management, and risk assessment. This course provides a robust, text-based foundation in the physical and mathematical principles of environmental transport processes. You will learn to formulate governing equations and apply analytical methods to predict the fate and concentration of materials in natural systems. What you'll learn: * Understand the fundamental concepts of advection, molecular diffusion, and turbulent dispersion in environmental media. * Apply the principle of mass conservation to derive and solve mass balance equations for well-mixed and flowing systems. * Master the use of analytical solutions for simplified transport scenarios, including steady-state and transient conditions. * Analyze the combined effects of transport mechanisms (advection-dispersion) and chemical reactions or biological decay on contaminant plumes. * Learn to configure basic box models and one-dimensional flow models essential for environmental quality prediction. * Practice quantifying key transport parameters, such as mixing lengths and overall dispersion coefficients, from written problem sets. The course begins by defining key terminology and physical mechanisms before introducing the governing equations for mass and energy transport. We then progress through analytical solutions for various environmental scenarios, concluding with an introduction to basic numerical modeling concepts. This course is designed for absolute beginners in environmental science, civil engineering, or related fields. No prior knowledge of transport phenomena is required, only basic college-level mathematics. Start building your essential analytical skills for environmental protection and engineering today.