Complex Mixtures And Groundwater Quality

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sponsors constant publication of the latest soil and groundwater contamination studies. Editor J. Russell Boulding has compiled the most recent and the best of these documents in the EPA Environmental Assessment Sourcebook. This book is required reading for both the novice and the experienced environmental academic or technician. Boulding's selections address the basic concepts of contaminant behavior through the newest sampling techniques. The EPA Environmental Assessment Sourcebook is an essential and convenient tool for anyone on the cutting edge of contamination detection, monitoring, and hopefully, someday, prevention.

This text presents a series of thematic chapters together with chapters on representative groundwater systems in Europe which illustrate the main processes and evolution of water quality. Brings together the research of a consortium of leading European scientists who have conducted detailed studies of water quality in Europe Includes a synthesis of findings, highlighting the thematic and regional results, with recommendations regarding aquifer evaluation, indicators, monitoring, and drinking water standards Creates a key reference work on natural water quality of aquifers, at a time when the Groundwater Directive (GD) will shortly be brought in to supplement The European Water Framework Directive (WFD) to ensure good status of groundwater

Groundwater is endangered and polluted in several ways. Conservation and better management of this invisible resource should be a key ingredient of sustainable water policies. This is especially true in areas, such as many Mediterranean regions, which are already exposed to scarcity problems and which are likely to experience increasing competition between freshwater uses and users. Agriculture is an important user of groundwater not only in terms of abstractions, but also in terms of generation and release of pollutants. Agricultural policies, traditionally directed towards other objectives, are beginning to pay more attention to environmental considerations. However more effective initiatives are required to reduce the pressure upon groundwater resources and to achieve a better integration between agricultural and environmental policies. This book has been developed from three workshops held as part of the EU Concerted Action SAGA, "Sustainable Agricultural Use of Aquifers in Southern Europe: Integration between Agricultural and Water Management Policies" (FAIR5-CT97-3673). The Concerted Action and the workshops brought together researchers working in different but complementary fields, in order to get a picture of the state-of-the art about interlinkages between agriculture and groundwater, as well a critical review of alternative regulatory approaches and policy instruments aimed at improving groundwater management.