Course details

The course consists of lectures, hands-on tutorials, a field excursion, and discussion sessions.

Course modules and credits

Students concentrate on two out of four course modules, students are granted a total of 3 credits (ECT) upon completion:

• First week: „Predicting the fate of organic pollutant in lakes“ or „Principles and applications of lake modeling“
• Second week: „Biogeochemical processes in lakes“ or „Modeling the fate of organic pollutants in lakes“
  

Module description

• Module 1 – Predicting the fate of organic pollutants in lakes: Partitioning of pollutants, photochemical reactions, effect of physical-chemical properties on reactivity (Schwarzenbach, McNeill, Kohn).
  
  
• Module 2 – Principles and applications of lake modeling: General principles,  transport and mixing processes, 1-D lake modeling with AQUASIM, parameter estimation, sensitivity analysis, applications (Wüest, Schmid, Reichert).
  
  
• Module 3 - Biogeochemical processes in lakes: Dynamics of carbon, nutrients, electron acceptors and trace gases, stable isotope techniques, chemical modeling of complex equilibria (Wehrli, Schubert, Pfeifer).
  
  
• Module 4 - Modeling the fate of organic pollutants in lakes: One-box and multi-box approaches, modeling key transformation processes, selected case studies (Hofstetter, Arey).