Syllabus

Course Meeting Times

Lectures: 2 sessions / week, 1.5 hours / session

Course Overview

This course is designed to give students an understanding of processes that govern the behavior of both hazardous and naturally-occurring substances in the environment. The subject includes aspects of intermedia transport, surface and groundwater hydrology, air pollution modeling, degradation processes, human exposure pathways, and monitoring.

Topics

Topics covered will include:

• Control Volumes, Mass Balance, and Advective/Dispersive Transport
• Chemical Equilibria, Mass Action, Electroneutrality, and Mass Conservation
• Chemical Kinetics and Partitioning
• River Transport, Lakes and Wetlands and Estuaries
• Sediment Transport, Bottom Sediments, Paleolimnology
• Air-Water Exchange
• Major Ion Chemistry of Natural Waters
• Ecosystem Characteristics and Redox Chemistry
• BOD/DO Modeling and Microbial Kinetics
• Photochemistry and Hydrolysis
• Groundwater and Aquifers, Darcy's Law, and Flow Nets
• Superposition, Capture Curves
• Transient Well Hydraulics and Transport and Retardation
• Unsaturated Zone Flow, Biodegradation and Bioremediation
• Atmospheric Structure and Adiabatic Lapse Rates
• Global, Synoptic, Local Scale Circulation
• Gaussian Plume Modeling and Deposition Processes
• Tropospheric Chemistry and Acid Deposition
• Stratospheric Chemistry and Radiative Activity of Gases

Assignments

Readings will be assigned primarily from text. Problem sets will be assigned weekly from the text.

Grading

All quizzes and exams are in-class, closed-book. One 8-1/2" x 11" sheet of handwritten notes will be permitted (one side for first quiz, both sides for final).