The course aims at giving the basic tools to address the issue of contaminated sites, with particular reference to chemical pollution.

The topics covered include the behavior of chemicals in soils and groundwater, environmental characterization, risk analysis and remediation techniques. In detail: 

• Soil and soil phases
• Water flow in the saturated zone
• Water flow in the unsaturated zone
• Air flow in the unsaturated zone
• Pollutants of concern
• Soil-pollutant interactions
• Fate and transport mechanisms and equations for pollutants dissolved in water
• Fate and transport mechanisms and equations for pollutants in the vapor phase
• Regulation
• Characterization and monitoring of soil and groundwater
• Gaseous pollutant monitoring
• Chemical analyses of soil, groundwater and gaseous samples
• Risk assessment at polluted sites
• Remediation technologies: basic concepts and selection criteria
• Chemical-physical remediation technologies for soils (thermal desorption, solidification/stabilization, soil washing, soil vapor extraction)
• Bioremediation of unsaturated soils (biopile, landfarming, slurry bioreactor, phytoremediation, bioventing)
• Chemical-physical remediation technologies for groundwater (air sparging, permeable reactive barriers, in situ chemical oxidation)
• Bioremediation of groundwater (biosparging, biobarriers, aerobic or anaerobic enhanced bioremediation)
• Groundwater emergency actions (pump & treat)
• Light non-aqueous phase liquid (LNAPL)
• LNAPL – soil interaction
• LNAPL recovery

The course deals with topics concerning the UN Sustainable Development Goal number 15 (Sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, halt and reverse land degradation, halt biodiversity loss) (SDG 15).

The course includes lessons devoted to perform numerical exercises.

The exam consists of a written screening test (multiple choice answers) about theoretical and numerical questions. Students passing this test are allowed to perform the oral exam, which covers both the theoretical and the numerical topics of the course.

The exam mark is based only on the oral test results.

Failure of the exam requires repetition of the written screening test in the following exams.