He made major contributions to environmental engineering by applying fundamental principles of mass transport and chemistry to drinking water treatment and wastewater reclamation research.
[2] Paul Roberts was a pioneer in applying fundamental principles of mass transport and chemistry to engineered environmental systems.
His broad body of work spans such topics as reclaimed wastewater, drinking water disinfection, adsorption and volatilization of organic contaminants during water and wastewater treatment, contaminant transport in groundwater, and multiphase flow in porous media.
He is perhaps best known for conceiving and directing the first and probably the most definitive field study ever conducted on the movement and fate of hazardous chemicals in groundwater at the Borden site in Canada.
In this study, his team clearly demonstrated the scientific value of carefully designed large-scale field experiments to test hypotheses, to validate mathematical models, to generate understanding of important natural processes, and to uncover still more important questions in need of better theoretical understanding.