PREDICTIVE MODEL OF POLLUTANT TRANSPORT IN A SOIL ENVIRONMENT

ABSTRACT

Effective environmental management and remediation strategies depend on an understanding of the movement and transport of pollutants in soil environments. This work is aimed at developing a mathematical model equation that can be used to predict the transport in the soil environment. The mathematical model was developed based on Fick’s second law of diffusion. To develop and validate the predictive model, soil samples were collected from various depths ranging from 0 to 40 cm from Oluku dumpsite to assess the distribution of pollutants in the soil environment. The concentration of pollutants was measured using standard laboratory techniques, and the diffusion of pollutants was modeled using Fick's second law of diffusion at steady state. The model assumes constant rate of diffusion, which simplifies the mathematical framework and allows for the prediction of pollutant diffusion. The developed equation was then used to fit the experimental data that were obtained from laboratory analysis of the soil samples. The Experimental and Model results obtained from the Calculation and Simulation of the developed models were compared numerically and graphically as presented in this work. It was observed that the transport of pollutants (heavy metals) in the dumpsite can be described by a linear regression equation The Validation of the predictive model was done using the coefficient of determination (R²) as a measure of its accuracy and reliability and the validation equations showed that the predicted concentrations have high R2 for the different heavy metal tested i.e. Pb, Zn, Ni, Cr yielded 94.73%, 81.84%, 92.84%, 82.60%, and 87.22% respectively showing the predicted values have a strong correlation with the experimental values. From the findings the model developed can be v vi usedtopredicttheconcentrationofpollutantatvariousdepths