Abstract
<jats:p>The paper considers a method for estimating the total mass flow rate of conservative pollutants in river sections with high anthropogenic load. The Barnaulka River (Altai Region, Russian Federation) was chosen as the object of study. The results of field measurements of the spatial concentration distribution for dissolved pollutants - lead, aluminum, and nitrate - in sections of accelerated growth of their content during the low-water period were analyzed. The aim of this study is to determine the spatial distribution of the total mass flow rate of pollutants and to estimate the Peclet number based on available measurement data. The unknown parameters of the model were determined from the minimization conditions of the quality functional of the model by the global optimization method using the mathematical package MATLAB, MathWorks Inc. Based on the data from field measurements, the global minimum of the model quality functional was determined, which made it possible to estimate the sought parameters. To test the stability of the obtained results for small sample sizes, the Monte-Carlo method was used to randomize the measured concentrations within the error range of the chemical analysis of the samples. The calculation showed an insignificant difference in the values of the sought parameters for randomized and non-randomized concentration values. For dissolved lead, the missing data imputation method was used, also demonstrating the stability of the values of the sought parameters. Based on the calculation results, it was suggested that the areas under consideration are hydrochemically homogeneous.</jats:p>