Preface
The past century has witnessed dramatic rates of industrialization around
the world, with average annual economic growth rates exceeding 7% in some
countries. One of the prices to be paid for such rapid growth, however, is
environmental deterioration. Air, water, and soil pollutions have been of serious concern for decades in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom,
France, Germany, and other developed nations in Europe.
Over the last three decades, the spectacular economic growth of Latin
America, China, India, Korea, and other Asian countries has generated an
increasing number of contaminated sites and waste disposal problems.
These represent a global challenge. The world’s estimated five million potentially contaminated sites are both a major lost economic opportunity and
also a threat to the health and well-being of the community and the wider
environment. Common contaminants include petroleum hydrocarbons,
chlorinated hydrocarbons, pesticides, inorganics such as toxic metal(loids),
and radioactive wastes. These are frequently found at a variety of sites, such
as oil, gas, and petrochemical operations, mines, industrial sites, waterways
and harbors, fuel storage farms, workshops, munitions factories, and so on.
Although site contamination has been recognized as an issue for more than
70 years, fewer than a tenth of all contaminated sites have been remediated
due to the complex and challenging nature of contamination, the highly
complex and heterogeneous subsurface that may vary from site to site, and
the high costs of clean-up. Most of these contaminated sites have associated
groundwater contamination problems that prevent their effective and reliable remediation and pose risks to the health of communities sometimes
quite distant from the original site. Remediation of groundwater is often
challenging due to the heterogeneity of the subsurface environment, difficulties with delineating contaminant plume, and the slow release and diffusion of contaminants from fractured rock and from sorbed phases. For these
reasons, many groundwater remediation techniques currently in use have
delivered only transient success.
A number of different techniques have been used for the remediation of
groundwater with the most cost-effective strategy being a risk-based approach
that is commonly practiced in Australia, where the state of Victoria’s legislation requires clean-up of groundwater to the extent practicable (CUTEP).
Similar laws have been adopted in other states where site remediators clean
groundwater using technologies that may not fully remediate groundwater, given the technological limitations or other environmental constraints.
Under these circumstances, the site is cleaned as far as practicable, and the
groundwater is then monitored over a sustained period to demonstrate natural attenuation of the contaminants. In this approach, natural attenuation
vii
The past century has witnessed dramatic rates of industrialization around
the world, with average annual economic growth rates exceeding 7% in some
countries. One of the prices to be paid for such rapid growth, however, is
environmental deterioration. Air, water, and soil pollutions have been of serious concern for decades in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom,
France, Germany, and other developed nations in Europe.
Over the last three decades, the spectacular economic growth of Latin
America, China, India, Korea, and other Asian countries has generated an
increasing number of contaminated sites and waste disposal problems.
These represent a global challenge. The world’s estimated five million potentially contaminated sites are both a major lost economic opportunity and
also a threat to the health and well-being of the community and the wider
environment. Common contaminants include petroleum hydrocarbons,
chlorinated hydrocarbons, pesticides, inorganics such as toxic metal(loids),
and radioactive wastes. These are frequently found at a variety of sites, such
as oil, gas, and petrochemical operations, mines, industrial sites, waterways
and harbors, fuel storage farms, workshops, munitions factories, and so on.
Although site contamination has been recognized as an issue for more than
70 years, fewer than a tenth of all contaminated sites have been remediated
due to the complex and challenging nature of contamination, the highly
complex and heterogeneous subsurface that may vary from site to site, and
the high costs of clean-up. Most of these contaminated sites have associated
groundwater contamination problems that prevent their effective and reliable remediation and pose risks to the health of communities sometimes
quite distant from the original site. Remediation of groundwater is often
challenging due to the heterogeneity of the subsurface environment, difficulties with delineating contaminant plume, and the slow release and diffusion of contaminants from fractured rock and from sorbed phases. For these
reasons, many groundwater remediation techniques currently in use have
delivered only transient success.
A number of different techniques have been used for the remediation of
groundwater with the most cost-effective strategy being a risk-based approach
that is commonly practiced in Australia, where the state of Victoria’s legislation requires clean-up of groundwater to the extent practicable (CUTEP).
Similar laws have been adopted in other states where site remediators clean
groundwater using technologies that may not fully remediate groundwater, given the technological limitations or other environmental constraints.
Under these circumstances, the site is cleaned as far as practicable, and the
groundwater is then monitored over a sustained period to demonstrate natural attenuation of the contaminants. In this approach, natural attenuation
vii