Air Pollution Tracking using PDEs

Abstract

In this paper we use the convection-diffusion equation to model the transport of pollutant material through the atmosphere. Such models have a wide range of applications such as predicting the environmental impact from new polluting industrial plants. In our study we solve the convection-diffusion equation in a two dimensional setting using the Crank-Nicholson method. For our application it is important that the numerical scheme be positive. The developed numerical model is used to predict the distribution of pollutant material for a few example scenarios. We also discuss the influence of external model parameters such as diffusion coefficient, drift velocity and chemical activity, on the results.