Department Seminar: Deciphering spatio-temporal patterns and using reactive transport models
Deciphering spatio-temporal patterns and using reactive transport models to improve process and understanding
Dr. Bhavna Arora, Energy Geosciences Division
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Reactive transport models (RTMs) are essential tools to address a broad range of environmental problems such as acid mine drainage, radionuclide contamination, climate change and water resources management. The role of RTMs has been expanding in recent years to quantify processes from bedrock to canopy and from pore to watershed scales. However, this expanding role of RTMs brings significant scientific challenges, such as incorporating heterogeneity in models given that data are sparse, multi-sourced and convoluted. In addition, predicting future ecosystem response is problematic because different spatio-temporal factors impact system behavior and need to be represented adequately in models.