Simulation of pollutants transport in rivers and its effect on the dynamics of a species by a high order method

Abstract

In the study of environmental transport phenomena, there is a standard analytic methodology to compute distribution, transport, and the fate of a pollutant in unbounded domains. However, to solve the problem in a nontrivial geometry accurately requires the use of a robust computational tool. This paper shows a derivation and an evaluation of a high order spectral element method to simulate the distribution and transport of a pollutant in surface waters and its effect on the population dynamics of a species. The algorithm implements a continuous Galerkin spectral element method in space and the trapezoid scheme to integrate in time. Finally, to validate the numerical method, this paper presents a time-space convergence study. Then, we simulated the transport of pollution runoff over a channel and its effect on a single species population dynamic.