Mary F. Wheeler - Böcker

This IMA Volume in Mathematics and its Applications RESOURCE RECOVERY, CONFINEMENT, AND REMEDIATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS contains papers presented at two successful one-week workshops: Confine­ ment and Remediation of Environmental Hazards held on January 15-19, 2000 and Resource Recovery, February 9-13, 2000. Both workshops were integral parts of the IMA annual program on Mathematics in Reactive Flow and Transport Phenomena, 1999-2000. We would like to thank John Chadam (University of Pittsburgh), Al Cunningham (Montana State Uni­ versity), Richard E. Ewing (Texas A&M University), Peter Ortoleva (In­ diana University), and Mary Fanett Wheeler (TICAM, The University of Texas at Austin) for their excellent work as organizers of the meetings and for editing the proceedings. We take this opportunity to thank the National Science Foundation for their support of the IMA. Series Editors Douglas N. Arnold, Director of the IMA Fadil Santosa, Deputy Director of the IMA v PREFACE Advances in resource recovery, and confinement/remediation of envi­ ronmental hazards requires a coordinated, interdisciplinary effort involving mathematicians, scientists and engineers. The intent of this collection of papers is to summarize recent theoretical, computational, and experimen­ tal advances in the theory of phenomena in porous media, with the intent to identify similarities and differences concerning applications related to both resource recovery and confinement and remediation of environmental hazards.

Environmental protection has become a universal issue with world-wide support. Environmental studies have now bridged the realms of academic research and societal applications. Mathematical modeling and large-scale data collection and analysis lie at the core of all environmental studies. Unfortunately, scientists, mathematicians, and engineers immersed in developing and applying environmental models, computational methods, statistical techniques and computational hardware advance with separate and often discordant paces. The volume is based on recent research designed to provide a much needed interdisciplinary forum for joint exploration of recent advances in this field.

This volume presents a selection of survey and research articles based on invited lectures and contributed talks presented at the Workshop on Fluid Dynamics in Porous Media that was held in Coimbra, Portugal, in September 12-14, 2011. The contributions are devoted to mathematical modeling, numerical simulation and their applications, providing the readers a state-of-the-art overview on the latest findings and new challenges on the topic. The book includes research work of worldwide recognized leaders in their respective fields and presents advances in both theory and applications, making it appealing to a vast range of audience, in particular mathematicians, engineers and physicists.