Contaminant transport refers to the physical and chemical processes governing the movement and fate of pollutants within environmental media such as groundwater, surface water, soil, and the atmosphere. It encompasses advection, dispersion, diffusion, sorption, volatilization, degradation, and transformation reactions that control contaminant distributions and concentrations over space and time. In research, contaminant transport is described by coupled partial differential equations derived from mass conservation, often incorporating multiphase flow, reactive transport, heterogeneity, and scale-dependent parameters. Accurate characterization and modeling of contaminant transport are critical for risk assessment, remediation design, and prediction of long-term contaminant plume evolution in engineered and natural systems.
Microplastics (MPs) pollution is a prevalent environmental problem that affects ecosystems globally. Despite the growing research on the environmental effects of MPs, a significant research gap remains in understanding the ...
Environment
Jul 7, 2025
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A new study published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology and led by researchers at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health identifies the hidden geological mechanisms behind widespread uranium contamination ...
Environment
Jun 26, 2025
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Years after wildfires burn forests and watersheds, the contaminants left behind continue to poison rivers and streams across the Western U.S.—much longer than scientists estimated.
Earth Sciences
Jun 23, 2025
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An instrument built at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to map minerals on Earth is now revealing clues about water quality. A recent study found that EMIT (Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation) was able to identify ...
Earth Sciences
Jun 12, 2025
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145
Despite global reductions in mercury emissions, mercury concentrations in Arctic wildlife continue to rise. A study published in Nature Communications by researchers from Aarhus University and the University of Copenhagen ...
Environment
Jun 12, 2025
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The accumulation of microplastics in the environment, and within our bodies, is an increasingly worrisome issue. But predicting where these ubiquitous particles will accumulate, and therefore where remediation efforts should ...
Earth Sciences
Jun 4, 2025
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The clean-up and site restoration of a New Zealand research station in Antarctica has provided valuable lessons on the challenges of contaminated sites, according to a study in the journal Polar Record.
Earth Sciences
Jun 3, 2025
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For many people, "plastic pollution" calls to mind pictures of turtles and other marine life drowning in single-use plastic bottles and discarded fishing nets. My own research looks at how the same story is playing out on ...
Environment
May 28, 2025
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23
We typically spend 80% of our time indoors, where the quality of the air we breathe depends on the age and type of building we occupy, as well as indoor pollution and outdoor pollution sources. But also playing an important ...
Environment
May 28, 2025
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51
A pioneering method to simulate how nanoparticles move through the air could boost efforts to combat air pollution, suggests a study in the Journal of Computational Physics.
Nanophysics
May 27, 2025
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