2023 Faculty Courses School of Environment and Society Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Graduate major in Civil Engineering
Geo-environmental Engineering
- Academic unit or major
- Graduate major in Civil Engineering
- Instructor(s)
- Jiro Takemura
- Class Format
- Lecture (Face-to-face)
- Media-enhanced courses
- -
- Day of week/Period
(Classrooms) - 1-2 Mon (MI1-105(M112)) / 1-2 Thu (MI1-105(M112))
- Class
- -
- Course Code
- CVE.C403
- Number of credits
- 200
- Course offered
- 2023
- Offered quarter
- 1Q
- Syllabus updated
- Jul 8, 2025
- Language
- English
Syllabus
Course overview and goals
Soils and ground water are critical environments specified in Basic Environment Law. However they have been polluted by both natural and anthropogenic contaminants, which cause various environmental problems and deteriorate the natural and built environments. Therefore, risks by such contaminations should be properly evaluated and removed if necessary.
In this course, various aspects on contaminations of ground water and soils, their remediation methods and waste disposal system will be explained: 1) hydrogeology; 2) physics of ground contamination; 3) physical and chemical properties of contaminants; 4) Remediation of ground contamination; 5) waste disposal and containment; and 6) environmental laws and case studies.
Course description and aims
Through this course, the students are expected to understand various aspects on contaminations of ground water and soils, such as basic knowledge, physical and chemical principles and theories, and their application on remediation of contaminated sites and conservation of the ground water and soil environment with the consideration of environmental laws. Furthermore the students will learn about various case studies and have their own views on the integrated geo-environment conservation measures and policies.
Keywords
ground water, soils, contamination, remediation. preseravation, environment laws, wastes
Competencies
- Specialist skills
- Intercultural skills
- Communication skills
- Critical thinking skills
- Practical and/or problem-solving skills
Class flow
Beside the lectures, the group works will be conducted on the environmental problems. Through the group works, suchs as discussion and presentation, the students will learn more about the environmental problems in different natural and built environments and possible solutions on the problems.
Course schedule/Objectives
| Course schedule | Objectives | |
|---|---|---|
| Class 1 | Introduction | learing about the histrory and basic aspects on geoenvironmental problems |
| Class 2 | Hydrogeology (I): Geological units, basic parameters of aquifer | learning about classification of hydrogeological units and absic properties of the aquifer |
| Class 3 | Hydrogeology (II): Basic equation of ground water flow and geochemistry | learning about basic equation of ground water flow and geochemistry |
| Class 4 | Ground contamination (I) - mechanism | Learning about mechanisms of contaminant transport in porous media |
| Class 5 | Ground contamination (II) - physical laws and governing factors | Learning about advetive-dispersive equation on the contaminant transports in porous media and parameters in the equation. |
| Class 6 | Various contaminants, sources of ground contamination and environmental laws | Learning about various types of contaminants, on their properties, contaminated sites, and related environmental laws. |
| Class 7 | VOC's and NAPLs | Learning about physical and chemical properties of VOC's and NAPLs and their partitioning and movement in the ground |
| Class 8 | Partitioning, sorption of contaminant | Learning about the partitioning of contaminants between liquid, solid and gas phases, especially on the sorption on the solid. |
| Class 9 | Remediation of contaminated sites | Learning about various remediation methods of soil and ground water contamination with case records |
| Class 10 | Basic knowledge of solid waste management & landfill | Learning about solid waste management and basic components of solid waste landfill facilities |
| Class 11 | Planning of landfills , Landfill liner and cover | Learning about construction planning of landfill, and liner and cover system |
| Class 12 | Trasient process of contaminant migration through liner, Monitoring | Learning about the transient process of contaminant migration through landfill liner and the way of monitoring and interpretation of the migration. |
| Class 13 | Radioactive wastes/ Disaster wastes | Learning about the properties of radio-active wastes and disaster wastes and the concerns in their process and disposal. |
| Class 14 | Presentation of group work | Case study of actual geo-environmental problems |
Study advice (preparation and review)
To enhance effective learning, students are encouraged to spend approximately 100 minutes preparing for class and another 100 minutes reviewing class content afterwards (including assignments) for each class.
They should do so by referring to textbooks and other course material.
Textbook(s)
Handouts are uploaded in T2SCHOLA.
Reference books, course materials, etc.
Daniel, D. E., (1993), “Geotechnical Practice for Waste Disposal”, Chapman & Hall, London.
Fetter, C. W.(2008) “Contaminant Hydrogeology 2nd ed”, Waveland Press Inc, Long Grove, IL, USA.
Bear, J. and Verruijt, A. (1990) “Modeling Groundwater Flow and Pollution”, Reidel P.C., Dordrecht, The Netherlands
Evaluation methods and criteria
Short tests & Assignment: 70%、Group work and oral examination: 30%
Related courses
- CVE.C201 ： Soil Mechanics I
- CVE.C202 ： Soil Mechanics II
- CVE.C311 ： Geotechnical Engineering in Practice
- CVE.N231 ： Concrete and Geotechnical Engineering Laboratory I
Prerequisites
None