Students learn concepts and principles related to the movement of solutes in soil and groundwater. We study processes affecting the spreading of contaminants in porous media, such as advection, diffusion, dispersion and adsorption, including a quantitative analysis by making use of the corresponding governing equations. Students will develop the ability to analyze hydrogeological situations and to set up mathematical models for quantitative description including initial and boundary conditions. Besides the application of analytical solutions, students will gain insight into the standard subsurface software package ModFlow. The course aims to stimulate scientific thinking and enhance the skill of problem solving. A key prerequisite here is the motivation for self-study, contextual thinking and quantitative analysis.
Content
The subsurface environment plays an important role in many human activities as well as in natural systems. Both, soil and groundwater are vulnerable natural resources. Moreover, the subsurface is frequently used for storage of mass and energy,facilities construction and infrastructure. Understanding and prediction of flow and transport processes is extremely important for a sustainable use of the subsurface. In particular, knowledge of the flow of water and the movement of dissolved chemicals is essential for the design of various activities occurring in the subsurface.
This course fosters the understanding and quantification of processes which affects the fate of dissolved groundwater components. The generality of the underlying physical principles allows to apply the knowledge to many other disciplines studying porous material, such as human tissues, plants, construction materials, or paper. Topics of study are:
Transport of solute by advection, diffusion and dispersion
Determination of flow velocity and dispersion coefficients
Description of adsorption: linear and nonlinear isotherms, kinetic adsorption
Determination of adsorption coefficients
Decay and degradation processes
Partitioning of chemicals in water, air and liquid phase.
Physical principles of transport, mathematical description and solution
Discussion of initial and boundary conditions
Colloid and virus transport
