2 nd International Science, Social-Science, Engineering and Energy Conference 2010: Engineering Science and Management A Numerical Computation of Water Quality Measurement in a Uniform Channel Using a Finite Difference Method

Abstract Water pollution assessment problems arise frequently in environmental science. In this research, a finite difference method for solving a one-dimensional steady convection-diffusion equation with variable coefficients is presented.© 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Keywords: Water quality; Uniform channel; Convection-diffusion equation; Dispersion model; Finite difference method 1. Introduction This paper describes a mathematical model for solving the dispersion of pollutants in a river. A finite difference method for assessment of the chemical oxygen demand (COD) concentration in a river is considered. In [2], [3], the finite element method is used for water quality measurement and control in one-dimensional and two-dimensional domains. This model requires the calculation of the substance dispersion given the water velocity in the channel. In this paper, a finite difference method is used to compute the concentration of the pollutant for variable inputs. A numerical example is also given.