Modelling and Simulation of Water Pollution Diffusion with Seasonal Unsteady Input Flows: A Case Study from China

Abstract

Abstract Because of its threats to public health and the ecology, water pollution is now recognized as one of the most crucial problems facing the environment, the main source of which is industrial waste. This paper examined the diffusion principle when industrial production activities are irregular and the input flows into the river are unsteady. Under a one-point pollution source with an unsteady input flow assumption, a one-dimensional diffusion model was developed that has an initial parabolic flow condition, for which a Jacobian-matrix-based finite-difference solution method was proposed. Finally, various practical scenarios were simulated, such as varying river flow velocities and degradation coefficients, to address the severe water pollution in the Tuojiang River Basin in the upper Yangtze River Basin in China, from which several useful managerial implications were elucidated to address complex real-life scenarios.