Environmental Systems Engineering

Hydrologic and Hydraulic Systems Modeling

Surface Water and Groundwater Dynamics

• Application of the continuity equation and Manning’s equation to analyze open-channel flow in natural and engineered drainage systems.
• Modeling groundwater flow using Darcy’s Law to determine hydraulic conductivity, aquifer transmissivity, and plume migration patterns.
• Techniques for calculating the water balance in a watershed, accounting for precipitation, evapotranspiration, infiltration, and runoff coefficients.

Contaminant Transport Mechanisms

• Mathematical modeling of advection, dispersion, and retardation processes to predict the movement of solutes through porous media.
• Calculation of chemical reaction kinetics, including first-order decay and microbial degradation rates within aquatic systems.

Water and Wastewater Treatment Engineering

Physical and Chemical Unit Processes

• Design and operation of coagulation and flocculation systems, including the selection of metallic salts and polymers based on zeta potential and turbidity reduction requirements.
• Advanced sedimentation basin hydraulics, involving the calculation of surface overflow rates and detention times to optimize particle settling.
• Principles of membrane filtration, specifically reverse osmosis and nanofiltration, focusing on transmembrane pressure, flux decline, and fouling mitigation.

Biological Treatment Systems

• Kinetic analysis of activated sludge systems using the Monod equation to determine biomass growth rates and substrate utilization.
• Design parameters for anaerobic digesters, including volatile solids reduction, hydraulic retention time, and methane production yield.
• Nutrient removal strategies, focusing on the nitrification and denitrification processes within multi-stage bioreactors to meet strict effluent nitrogen limits.

Air Quality Engineering and Control

Atmospheric Dispersion Modeling

• Application of Gaussian plume models to estimate ground-level concentrations of criteria pollutants from point and area sources.
• Analysis of atmospheric stability classes and mixing heights to predict the effective stack height and dispersion patterns under varying meteorological conditions.

Particulate and Gaseous Emission Control

• Engineering design of mechanical separators such as cyclones, focusing on cut-point diameter and pressure drop calculations.
• Principles of electrostatic precipitators and fabric filters, including the influence of particle resistivity and air-to-cloth ratios on collection efficiency.
• Scrubber design for acid gas removal, utilizing mass transfer principles to optimize the liquid-to-gas ratio and contact time.

Solid and Hazardous Waste Management

Integrated Waste System Design

• Engineering the components of a modern landfill, including composite liner systems (geosynthetic clay liners and geomembranes) and leachate collection networks.
• Landfill gas management calculations, utilizing the LandGEM model to estimate methane generation rates and design energy recovery or flaring systems.

Hazardous Waste Remediation

• In-situ and ex-situ remediation technologies, such as soil vapor extraction, pump-and-treat systems, and bioremediation via bioaugmentation.
• Risk assessment frameworks for contaminated sites, involving the calculation of hazard quotients and cancer risk probabilities based on chronic exposure pathways.

Environmental Systems Sustainability

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)

• Methodology for conducting cradle-to-grave analysis of engineering products, including goal definition, inventory analysis, and environmental impact assessment.
• Quantification of carbon and water footprints by aggregating resource consumption and emission data across all phases of the system lifecycle.

Energy-Water Nexus

• Evaluating the energy intensity of water supply and wastewater treatment processes, identifying opportunities for energy recovery through heat exchange and biosolids-to-energy conversion.
• System-level optimization of decentralized vs. centralized infrastructure to reduce resource requirements and environmental footprint.