A biogeochemical model of contaminant fate and transport in river waters and sediments

A quasi-two-dimensional model is presented for simulating transport and transformation of contaminant species in river waters and sediments, taking into account the effect of both biotic and abiotic geochemical reactions on the contaminant fate and mobility. The model considers the downstream transport of dissolved and sediment-associated species, and the mass transfer with bed sediments due to erosion and resuspension, using linked advection-dispersion-reaction equations. The model also couples both equations to the reactive transport within bed sediment phases. This is done by the use of a set of vertical one-dimensional columns representing sediment layers that take into account the reactive transport of chemicals, burial, sorption/desorption to/from the solid phase, and the diffusive transport of aqueous species. Kinetically-controlled reversible solid-water mass exchange models are adopted to simulate interactions between suspended sediments and bulk water, as well as the mass exchange between bed sediments and pore water. An innovative multi-time step approach is used to model the fully kinetic nonlinear reaction terms using a non-iterative explicit method. This approach enables the model to handle fast and near-equilibrium reactions without a significant increase in computational burden. At the end, two demonstration cases are simulated using the model, including transport of a sorbing, non-reactive trace metal and nitrogen cycling, both in the Colusa Basin Drain in the Central Valley of California. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.