Environmental Transport Processes: Modeling Pollutant Flow

Understanding how pollutants and nutrients move through our air, water, and soil is critical for solving today's environmental challenges. This course provides a clear, text-based introduction to the physical processes that govern the transport and mixing of substances in natural systems. By mastering these concepts, you will gain the skills to analyze transport scenarios, predict pollutant pathways, and evaluate remediation strategies. What you'll learn: - Understand the core mechanisms of advection, molecular diffusion, and turbulent dispersion. - Analyze how substances mix and transport in rivers, lakes, oceans, and the atmosphere. - Apply mathematical mass balance equations to predict concentration changes over time. - Evaluate the impact of modern climate factors on natural transport and mixing patterns. - Explore modern environmental sensing technologies and digital modeling frameworks. This course begins with foundational definitions of fluid flow and mass transport before guiding you through practical analytical models for surface water, groundwater, and atmospheric systems. You will practice applying these concepts through written scenarios, conceptual challenges, and step-by-step calculation exercises. This course is designed for beginners, aspiring environmental engineers, and sustainability professionals with no prior engineering background. Start reading today to build your foundation in environmental fluid mechanics and pollutant transport.