Groundwater quality: remediation and protection

Abstract

At many places all over the world groundwater has become contaminated, mostly as a result of poorly designed hazardous waste disposal facilities, leakage from Underground storage tanks and mine tailings, and accidental spills. Groundwater pollution can also be caused by application of fertilizers and pesticides in agriculture. The chemicals trapped in the subsurface constitute a major long-term contamination source to a groundwater system, resulting in threat to groundwater supply and direct risk to human health, for example by volatilization of toxic compounds.

Once a groundwater system becomes contaminated it is almost an impossible task to clean it up. Many contaminants are persistent and remain hazardous even at low concentrations. This publication comprises the proceedings of the International Conference on Groundwater Quality: Remediation and Protection (GQ'98) held at Tübingen, Germany, in September 1998. As at the two previous conferences in the series, GQM'93 (held in Estonia in 1993) and GQ'95 (held in Czech Republic in 1995), the major objectives of the GQ'98 Conference were to provide an international forum for state-of-the-art presentations on relevant methodologies and techniques, and to identify the needs for future developments. The conference focused on practical approaches to assess groundwater quality, viable solutions to contamination problems, and methods for protection. Also addressed were directly applicable methods for common field problems. Of particular interest were: - identification of processes and parameters limiting clean up efficiency; - methods to assess and monitor groundwater quality at field scale; - reactive transport/modelling in heterogeneous environments; - innovative remediation techniques.