Identification of Multiple Pollutant Sources in Rivers in One-Dimensional Domain under Real Conditions

It is almost three decades that finding the release time and location of pollutant sources in rivers has attracted the researchers’ and pundits’ attention. In most of the current studies related to finding the release time and the location of pollutant sources, each of the researchers has considered their own specific circumstances in kind of hypotheses and problem solution methods. In a more general study, in previous studies researchers have used three approaches for solving the inverse problem of the pollutant transport equation. The first approach (simulation-optimization methods) includes characteristics such as combining an optimization algorithm with other numerical methods of solving transport and hydrodynamic equations. The need to use computers with strong processors for solving inverse problem is a type of computational costs that can be counted as a weakness for this method (Mazaheri et al., 2015). The second approach (probabilistic and geostatistical methods) focuses on using probabilistic and geostatistical distribution. Furthermore, using this method would assist to decrease computational volume for finding inverse problem answers, and finally would reduce number of simulations. So, that is an advantage for this method.