Pollution transport in the lagoon of Grado-Marano: a two-dimensional modelling approach

Pollution and water quality in lagoon areas represent a problem for human health and for the local economy particularly felt by people living nearby. In Italy the lagoon of Grado and Marano, located in the Northeast part of the Adriatic Sea, is subject to mercury pollution. It is held by some that the source of pollution is the river Isonzo that drains polluted sediments from a Slovenian region and partly feeds the lagoon. Others believe that the source of pollutants should be looked for elsewhere, for example in some industrial es-tablishments which, in the past, are believed to have introduced concentrations of polluting material into channels that flow into the lagoon. In this paper a 2D finite volume model is proposed for studying the disper-sion of a dissolved pollutant in the lagoon environment and the results obtained in applying the model to the lagoon of Grado and Marano are illustrated.