Institute of Water Research

Project Summary

The Integrated PFAS Fate and Transport Modeling project aims to develop a scientifically robust and integrated watershed-scale modeling framework that supports the analysis of contaminant transport across surface water and groundwater systems. The project focuses on creating a technically defensible modeling platform that links watershed, groundwater, and surface-water models into a unified framework, providing a foundation for future PFAS fate and transport assessments, remedial planning, and scenario evaluation. 

The project will establish an integrated modeling architecture that enables consistent exchange of hydrologic information among watershed runoff, groundwater flow, streamflow routing, and groundwater–surface water interaction models. It will also develop a centralized data management and preprocessing workflow by compiling, harmonizing, and organizing diverse datasets—including topography, hydrography, soils, land cover, climate, stream networks, groundwater characteristics, water-use information, and monitoring data—into a standardized, modeling-ready database. This integrated framework will improve data consistency, quality control, model reproducibility, and information sharing across model components, providing a reliable scientific foundation for future contaminant transport studies and water resource management decisions.