AbstractA finite‐element method which incorporates mesh adaptation is used to calculate ground‐water flow and pollutant transport. The formulation is based on the equations for conservation of mass, Darcy's law for an anisotropic medium, and the time‐dependent species transport equation. Modifications have been implemented to the finite‐element formulation to enhance computational speed and reduce storage; Petrov‐Galerkin weighting of the advection terms provides numerical stability. An explicit time marching scheme is used to solve the transient equations. By utilizing unstructured adaptive meshing, species concentration and location of steep fronts are accurately resolved, even though one begins with a coarse mesh. The algorithm currently runs on PC and workstation class
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