Kishor Acharya – författare

This is the time when legacy, pathogenic, and emerging contaminants must be talked about, understood, and dealt with together. While the geogenic contamination of the groundwater is a well-established phenomenon that is considered as legacy contaminants that risk people’s health globally, both pathogenic and emerging contaminants like various water-borne pathogens and pharmaceutical personal care products (PPCPs) are becoming imperative for their acute and chronic toxic effects. While contaminated groundwater consumption leads to skin pigmentation, hyperkeratosis, kidney damage, cardiovascular disease, and children’s overall development, poor sanitation-related pathogenic microorganisms cause a significant number of child and prenatal deaths. Simultaneously, antibiotic microbial resistance (AMR) is expected to kill 100 million people by 2050. However, there are rare texts that combine aspects of all these three under a single book cover.

This book gives an understanding of the occurrence, fate, and transport of geogenic, microbial, and anthropogenic contaminants in the groundwater. It covers not only the scientific and technical aspects but also environmental, legal, and policy aspects for contaminant management in the environment under the paradigm shift of COVID-19. This book is intended to bring the focus on the natural contaminants—biotic or abiotic—in the post-COVID Anthropocene, which is illustrating a significant alteration of systems and the subsequent downstream impacts owing to globalization. This book has compiled global work on emergence, mass flow, partitioning, and activation of geogenic, emerging, and pathogenic contaminants in various spheres of environment with special emphasis on soil, sediment, and aquatic systems for enhancing the understanding on their migration and evolution for the welfare of mankind.

This is the time when legacy, pathogenic, and emerging contaminants must be talked about, understood, and dealt with together. While the geogenic contamination of the groundwater is a well-established phenomenon that is considered as legacy contaminants that risk people’s health globally, both pathogenic and emerging contaminants like various water-borne pathogens and pharmaceutical personal care products (PPCPs) are becoming imperative for their acute and chronic toxic effects. While contaminated groundwater consumption leads to skin pigmentation, hyperkeratosis, kidney damage, cardiovascular disease, and children’s overall development, poor sanitation-related pathogenic microorganisms cause a significant number of child and prenatal deaths. Simultaneously, antibiotic microbial resistance (AMR) is expected to kill 100 million people by 2050. However, there are rare texts that combine aspects of all these three under a single book cover.

This book gives an understanding of the occurrence, fate, and transport of geogenic, microbial, and anthropogenic contaminants in the groundwater. It covers not only the scientific and technical aspects but also environmental, legal, and policy aspects for contaminant management in the environment under the paradigm shift of COVID-19. This book is intended to bring the focus on the natural contaminants—biotic or abiotic—in the post-COVID Anthropocene, which is illustrating a significant alteration of systems and the subsequent downstream impacts owing to globalization. This book has compiled global work on emergence, mass flow, partitioning, and activation of geogenic, emerging, and pathogenic contaminants in various spheres of environment with special emphasis on soil, sediment, and aquatic systems for enhancing the understanding on their migration and evolution for the welfare of mankind.

With an increased demand for wastewater reuse, groundwater recharge with treated wastewater has been practiced across the globe. As a result, groundwater quality deteriorates by emerging micropollutants from various anthropogenic origins, including untreated wastewater, seepage of landfill leachate, and runoff from agricultural lands. The fate of such emerging and geogenic contaminants in subsurface systems, especially in the groundwater, depends on several factors. Physicochemical properties of contaminants such as octanol-water partition coefficient, dissociation constant, water solubility, susceptibility to biodegradation under anaerobic conditions, and environmental persistence under diverse geological and pH conditions play a critical role during subsurface mass flow. Thus, advanced wastewater treatment techniques, followed by implementing stricter guidelines, are some of the measures that can safeguard water resources.

This book, in general, gives an understanding of the fate and mitigation strategies for emerging and geogenic contaminants in the groundwater. The first and second sections provide a detailed insight into various removal techniques and mitigation approaches. Possible treatment strategies, including bioremediation and natural attenuation, are also covered in those sections. Environmental assessment, groundwater vulnerability, health effects, and regulations pertaining to various contaminants are systematically presented in the third section.

With an increased demand for wastewater reuse, groundwater recharge with treated wastewater has been practiced across the globe. As a result, groundwater quality deteriorates by emerging micropollutants from various anthropogenic origins, including untreated wastewater, seepage of landfill leachate, and runoff from agricultural lands. The fate of such emerging and geogenic contaminants in subsurface systems, especially in the groundwater, depends on several factors. Physicochemical properties of contaminants such as octanol-water partition coefficient, dissociation constant, water solubility, susceptibility to biodegradation under anaerobic conditions, and environmental persistence under diverse geological and pH conditions play a critical role during subsurface mass flow. Thus, advanced wastewater treatment techniques, followed by implementing stricter guidelines, are some of the measures that can safeguard water resources.

This book, in general, gives an understanding of the fate and mitigation strategies for emerging and geogenic contaminants in the groundwater. The first and second sections provide a detailed insight into various removal techniques and mitigation approaches. Possible treatment strategies, including bioremediation and natural attenuation, are also covered in those sections. Environmental assessment, groundwater vulnerability, health effects, and regulations pertaining to various contaminants are systematically presented in the third section.