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.
"Dirty" or "extremely dirty": these are the classifications of 46% of the world's aquatic environments. This conclusion comes from a study that compiled and systematized data from 6,049 records of waste contamination in aquatic ...
Environment
Feb 6, 2026
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If you've watched a giraffe browsing in the tree canopy, a white rhino meandering across open grassland, or a warthog shuffling around on its knees in South Africa's Kalahari desert, you know what they eat: leaves, grass, ...
Plants & Animals
Feb 4, 2026
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Chemicals brought in to help protect our ozone layer have had the unintended consequences of spreading vast quantities of a potentially toxic "forever chemical" around the globe, a new study shows. Atmospheric scientists, ...
Earth Sciences
Feb 4, 2026
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Researchers led by Collaborative Research Center (CRC) 1357 Microplastics at the University of Bayreuth have overturned a common scientific assumption in a new study: Microplastic particles do not all exhibit similar transport ...
Environment
Feb 3, 2026
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Kristen Hanneman made a small decision in 2022 that would upend life for her entire town.
Environment
Feb 2, 2026
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In North America and Europe, emissions of ozone precursors such as nitrogen oxides (NOx) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) declined by half between 2000 and 2018. However, the ozone content of the air—and thus the risk ...
Environment
Jan 29, 2026
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For decades, families in communities around Johannesburg have been living close to huge gold mining waste dumps. For many residents, the dust that is released there is just part of everyday life—but it can contain natural ...
Earth Sciences
Jan 29, 2026
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No matter where you live in the United States, you have likely seen headlines about PFAS being detected in everything from drinking water to fish to milk to human bodies.
Environment
Jan 29, 2026
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A new University of Virginia study led by environmental scientist Justin Richardson shows that phosphorus pollution driving algae blooms in Virginia's Lake Anna may come from residential areas as well as farms, but a more ...
Environment
Jan 28, 2026
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Beginning in the early 2000s, some of the most common and well-studied PFAS were phased out through a combination of industry shifts and international regulations. A new study from Harvard has found that since that phaseout, ...
Environment
Jan 26, 2026
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