Well-balanced finite volume schemes for pollutant transport by shallow water equations on unstructured meshes

Pollutant transport by shallow water flows on non-flat topography is presented and numerically solved using a finite volume scheme. The method uses unstructured meshes, incorporates upwinded numerical fluxes and slope limiters to provide sharp resolution of steep bathymetric gradients that may form in the approximate solution. The scheme is non-oscillatory and possesses conservation property that conserves the pollutant mass during the transport process. Numerical results are presented for three test examples which demonstrate the accuracy and robustness of the scheme and its applicability in predicting pollutant transport by shallow water flows. In this paper, we also apply the developed scheme for a pollutant transport event in the Strait of Gibraltar. The scheme is efficient, robust and may be used for practical pollutant transport phenomena. (C) 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.