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"Water Pollution."
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The environmental science of drinking water
In today's chemically dependent society, environmental studies demonstrate that drinking water in developed countries contains numerous industrial chemicals, pesticides, pharmaceuticals and chemicals from water treatment processes.This poses a real threat.
eBook
The low but uncertain measured benefits of US water quality policy
US investment to decrease pollution in rivers, lakes, and other surface waters has exceeded $1.9 trillion since 1960, and has also exceeded the cost of most other US environmental initiatives. These investments come both from the 1972 Clean Water Act and the largely voluntary efforts to control pollution from agriculture and urban runoff. This paper reviews the methods and conclusions of about 20 recent evaluations of these policies. Surprisingly, most analyses estimate that these policies’ benefits are much smaller than their costs; the benefit–cost ratio from the median study is 0.37. However, existing evidence is limited and undercounts many types of benefits. We conclude that it is unclear whether many of these regulations truly fail a benefit–cost test or whether existing evidence understates their net benefits; we also describe specific questions that when answered would help eliminate this uncertainty.
Journal Article
Physical and chemical processes in the aquatic environment
\"This book has a unique outline in that it follows pollution from sources to impact. Included in the text is the treatment of various tracers, ranging from pathogens to stable isotopes of elements and providing a comprehensive discussion which is lacking in many other books on pollution control of natural waters\"- Provided by publisher.
Book
Shedding light on the invisible: addressing the potential for groundwater contamination by plastic microfibers
The processes of microplastic fiber pollution in groundwater are unknown. The recent research on this contaminant threat is generally focused on surface waters (mainly oceans and rivers), while aquifer contamination is only marginally mentioned as an issue needing further investigation. Synthetic microfibers can be introduced into soils in different ways (e.g. wastewater treatment plants or greywater discharge, septic tank outflows, direct injection of contaminated water in cases of managed aquifer recharge, losing streams, etc.), and can thus reach aquifer systems due to leaching or infiltration in soil pores. Microfibers can then adsorb persistent bioaccumulative and toxic chemicals, which include persistent organic pollutants and metals, and become a carrier of harmful substances in the aquifer system, hence contributing to the overall contamination in both urban and rural areas. For this reason, it is of paramount importance, not only to assess the occurrence and fate of microplastic fibers in groundwater, but also to study the role of microplastics as carriers of contaminants within the aquifer and to advance standardization and organization of monitoring campaigns. Only by addressing these key challenges can hydrogeologists contribute to the state of the art on microplastic pollution and ensure that groundwater is not neglected in the environmental assessments tackling this contaminant of emerging concern.
Journal Article
Plastic Debris in Lakes and Reservoirs
Plastic debris is thought to be widespread in freshwater ecosystems globally
1
. However, a lack of comprehensive and comparable data makes rigorous assessment of its distribution challenging
2
,
3
. Here we present a standardized cross-national survey that assesses the abundance and type of plastic debris (>250 μm) in freshwater ecosystems. We sample surface waters of 38 lakes and reservoirs, distributed across gradients of geographical position and limnological attributes, with the aim to identify factors associated with an increased observation of plastics. We find plastic debris in all studied lakes and reservoirs, suggesting that these ecosystems play a key role in the plastic-pollution cycle. Our results indicate that two types of lakes are particularly vulnerable to plastic contamination: lakes and reservoirs in densely populated and urbanized areas and large lakes and reservoirs with elevated deposition areas, long water-retention times and high levels of anthropogenic influence. Plastic concentrations vary widely among lakes; in the most polluted, concentrations reach or even exceed those reported in the subtropical oceanic gyres, marine areas collecting large amounts of debris
4
. Our findings highlight the importance of including lakes and reservoirs when addressing plastic pollution, in the context of pollution management and for the continued provision of lake ecosystem services.
Analysis of plastic debris found in surface waters shows that lakes and reservoirs in densely populated and urbanized regions, as well as those with elevated deposition areas, are particularly vulnerable to plastic contamination.
Journal Article
Groundwater Quality Assessment Using Improved Water Quality Index (WQI) and Human Health Risk (HHR) Evaluation in a Semi-arid Region of Northwest China
To ensure the safety of drinking water, 51 groundwater samples were collected from a semi-arid area of China and various physicochemical parameters were analyzed. Groundwater quality for drinking purposes along with the associated health risks was assessed using a water quality index (WQI) which was improved using the Criteria Importance Through Inter-criteria Correlation weighting method. The results show that the groundwater was slightly alkaline and the total dissolved solids ranged from 497.26 to 2198.82 mg/L. The ionic dominance pattern was in the order of K
+
+ Na
+
> Ca
2+
> Mg
2+
> NH
4
+
for cations, and HCO
3
−
> SO
4
2+
> Cl
−
> NO
2
−
> NO
3
−
> CO
3
2−
> F
−
for anions, respectively. In the study region, HCO
3
–Na and HCO
3
–Ca·Mg were the dominant water types, followed by the SO
4
·Cl–Na type, which are mainly controlled by rock weathering, leaching, and evaporation. 94.12% of the total samples are suitable for drinking; the poor and extremely poor water for human consumption are mainly located in the center and northeast of the study area. The non-carcinogenic health risk for males ranged from 0.0002 to 38.7575, for females 0.0002 to 49.2935, and for children 0.0003 to 84.3167, respectively. The health risk for children was approximately 2.18 times and 1.71 times higher than that for males and females, indicating that children are more susceptible to water contamination. The major pollutants in the study region are nitrite, nitrate, and fluoride. Therefore, the necessary steps to be taken to clean up this highly nitrite-, nitrate-, and fluorine-contaminated groundwater and health risks in this study region.
Journal Article