Environmental Transport Processes: Mass Transfer and Modeling

How do contaminants spread through a flowing river, disperse in the atmosphere, or migrate through groundwater? Understanding these transport mechanisms is essential for designing engineering solutions and protecting natural ecosystems. This text-based course guides you from the absolute fundamentals of fluid motion and mass conservation to modeling real-world environmental transport processes. You will learn to: Understand the core physical mechanisms of mass transport, including molecular diffusion, advection, and turbulent dispersion; Formulate and solve mass balance equations for lakes, rivers, and subsurface systems; Analyze how physical boundaries and environmental variables affect pollutant concentration profiles over time; Apply mathematical models to predict the spread of contaminants in diverse scenarios; Explore modern computational concepts for simulating transport processes using basic numerical methods. You will begin with key terminology and foundational principles of mass conservation before moving on to analytical solutions for steady and unsteady transport. Designed for beginners in civil engineering, environmental science, or fluid mechanics, this course requires no prior modeling experience. Start reading to master the mechanics of environmental transport and build your analytical engineering toolkit.