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INTRODUCTION CONTROLS ON ARSENIC TRANSPORT IN NEAR-SURFACE AQUATIC SYSTEMS
Citation:
FORD, R. G., R. T. WILKIN, AND S. FENDORF. INTRODUCTION CONTROLS ON ARSENIC TRANSPORT IN NEAR-SURFACE AQUATIC SYSTEMS. CHEMICAL GEOLOGY. Elsevier Science Ltd, New York, NY, 228(1-3):1-5, (2006).
Description:
This special issue developed as a result of two concurrent topical sessions held at the annual meetings of the Geological Society of America and the Soil Science Society of America held during November 2003. The focus of these sessions was recent research conducted to build on our understanding of the biogeochemical processes that control transport of arsenic in near-surface aquatic systems. The motivation for these independent sessions was the societal need to develop strategies for identifying, remediating and circumventing the degradation of existing and undeveloped drinking water supplies throughout the world from natural and man-made sources of arsenic. The deleterious effects of arsenic in water supplies have been highlighted recently by the regional poisoning of a large population in Bangladesh due to naturally occurring arsenic in ground-water supplies. The unfortunate outcome of this well-intentioned effort to provide a safe supply of drinking water points to our persistent ignorance (or lack of acknowledgement) of the factors that control the chemistry of ground water. In many cases, the failure to educate water-supply practitioners of the factors that govern water-rock interactions and element fluxes in ground water supplies has lead to the general degradation of our water resources in the subsurface. This failure is due, in part, to a continuing struggle within the scientific community to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the complex interactions of the physical, chemical and biological processes that govern element budgets in subsurface systems.