Soil and water contamination

Course goals

Content

The course Soil and Water Contamination consists of three coherent parts, namely:

• Physical and chemical behaviour of contaminants.
• Modelling of transport and transformation processes.
• Pollutant patterns in soil, groundwater, and surface water.

In the first part (week 1-3), the natural and anthropogenic sources of nutrients, heavy metals, organic pollutants, and radionuclides, as well as their physico-chemical characteristics and toxicity in the natural environment, are treated in a series of e-lectures and live lectures. Detailed Information about the physico-chemical characteristics of some selected environmental contaminants will be collated in a group assignment.

The second part (week 3-6) introduces the mathematical modelling of processes of transport, exchange, and transformation, such as for example advection, dispersion, and kinetics of adsorption and biochemical decay. The basic theories will be presented and illustrated with examples from field and modelling studies during a series of e-lectures and live lectures. The theory will be applied and exercised in problems to be solved during practicals.

The knowledge gained from the first two parts are applied in the third part of the course (week 7-9). In a series of e-lectures and live lectures, the spatial and temporal patterns of pollutants in soil, groundwater, and surface water are explained by their causes by means of several case studies from fundamental and applied research. Each student will summarise a specific case study in an infographic and an oral pitch presentation.