Page 27 - Soil and water contamination, 2nd edition

14 Soil and Water Contamination

pollution. After a brief introduction to environmental chemistry and the features of the
environmental compartments soil, groundwater, and surface water, Part II of this book
addresses the sources and physical and chemical properties of the major contaminants in soil
and water. This provides the basic knowledge needed to understand and assess the existence
and behaviour of pollutants in the environment. Part III goes into more detail about the
processes of pollutant dispersal and the mathematical modelling of pollution. Finally, Part IV
discusses the resulting spatial and temporal pollution patterns in the landscape (i.e. at scales
ranging from several tens of metres to hundreds of kilometres) using case studies from the
literature. Key questions that are discussed in this part are:
• Which hydrological, geomorphological, geochemical, and biological processes are
responsible for observed spatial contaminant patterns in the environment?
• How do these patterns evolve in time?
• How do landscape factors, such as soil properties, land use, slope gradient, river network,
or vegetation structure control the fluxes of emitted contaminants through soil and water?
• What are the effects of environmental change on the processes controlling contaminant
transport and fate?

These questions are important in both fundamental research and water and soil
management. They also help us improve our understanding of spatial patterns of soil and
water contamination, to predict their future changes, and to identify potential environmental
hazards.

EXERCISES

1. Define the following terms:
a. Pollution
b. Contamination
c. Secondary pollutants
d. Background concentration
e. Diffuse source
f. LD50
g. NOEC
h. Bioavailability
i. Bioaccumulation

2. Describe a method for the determination of background concentrations of heavy metals
in soil.
3. Describe two different realistic scenarios for future spatial development in a radius of
about 10 km around your home town and identify relevant issues with respect to soil and
groundwater pollution.

4. Describe the role of physical geography and related disciplines of earth science in
environmental research.

5. Why does spatial scale generally correlate with temporal scale in environmental research?

6. Explain why ploughing is an important process of transport of soil nutrients at the scale
of a soil profile and not at the scale of an entire river basin.

10/1/2013 6:44:06 PM
Soil and Water.indd 26
Soil and Water.indd 26 10/1/2013 6:44:06 PM