Estimating contaminant transport is of great importance for water quality assessment and water resources management. Due to the complex mechanisms and three-dimensional (3D) variability, estimating the concentration field of effluent mixing and transport is a challenging task. It is not practical to establish spatiotemporally high-resolution observation networks for monitoring contaminant mixing phenomena; thus, it is meaningful to develop mathematical approaches to predict the relevant processes. However, the applications of analytical or simplified numerical models are typically restricted to comparably simple cases. Sophisticated numerical models based on the 3D computational fluid dynamics (CFD) technique can provide accurate predictions, but they are computationally expensive and require high-level 3D CFD expertise, impeding their widespread usage.The recent developments in machine learning (ML) techniques and computing resources have provided a new avenue for investigating complex physical processes. Deep learning (DL), which is a subset of ML, has recently been applied to various water-related problems, and has been demonstrated to be a powerful tool for the community of water resources research. Thus, DL is potentially a promising candidate tool for modeling effluent mixing and transport.To assess the suitability of DL in modeling effluent mixing and transport, we focus on a classic example: the mixing and transport of multiple buoyant effluents discharged vertically into stagnant ambient water. This is a very important example for effluent mixing and transport. First, investigating this phenomenon itself is crucial for environmental assessment and water resources research, especially because wastewater effluents from