Chapter 8
Reappraisal of Permeable Reactive
Barrier as a Sustainable Groundwater
Remediation Technology
Alok Kumar Thakur and Manish Kumar
8.1 Introduction
Groundwater contamination has become a serious problem throughout the world
due to the release of various contaminants from different sectors, both industrial
and non-industrial. As per the United Nations, around 3 million people die each year
around the globe due to consumption of contaminated water, diseases being diarrhea,
typhoid, viral hepatitis and cholera being most common. Alone in India, this death
toll rises to one lakh, and here, acute diarrheal diseases constitute 60% of the total
deaths. Registered cases as per 2018 data of Ministry of Health and Family welfare in
the last five years are equivalent to the population of the United Kingdom. India is at
top of the chart in groundwater abstraction with an estimated volume of 251 km
3 /year
(Gun 2012). As per world report, groundwater of one-third of India’s 725 districts is
not fit for drinking due to the contaminants being more than the permissible limit be
it arsenic, fluoride or salinity (Singh et al. 2019, 2020; Kumar et al. 2010, 2016; Das
et al. 2015). Conditions in the state of Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Assam, Odisha
and Madhya Pradesh are being severely criticized. As per NITI Aayog report of 2019,
India stands at 120th rank out of 122 countries in water quality index report, which
is not to be improved anytime soon, looking at the country’s demand increasing each
year.
Groundwater contamination exists when a man-made pollutant originating from
sources like combustion of fossils fuels, road salts and other dreadful chemicals gets
leached into the groundwater and ravage the water quality making its unsafe for
human or animals use as shown in Fig. (8.1). The contribution of groundwater in
every field is of critical importance be it irrigation, drinking, mining or industrial.
More than two billion people around the world depend on the groundwater aquifers
A. K. Thakur · M. Kumar (B)
Discipline of Earth Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, Gandhinagar, Gujarat
382355, India
e-mail: manish.kumar@iitgn.ac.in
© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021
M. Kumar et al. (eds.), Contaminants in Drinking and Wastewater Sources,
Springer Transactions in Civil and Environmental Engineering,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-4599-3_8
179
Reappraisal of Permeable Reactive
Barrier as a Sustainable Groundwater
Remediation Technology
Alok Kumar Thakur and Manish Kumar
8.1 Introduction
Groundwater contamination has become a serious problem throughout the world
due to the release of various contaminants from different sectors, both industrial
and non-industrial. As per the United Nations, around 3 million people die each year
around the globe due to consumption of contaminated water, diseases being diarrhea,
typhoid, viral hepatitis and cholera being most common. Alone in India, this death
toll rises to one lakh, and here, acute diarrheal diseases constitute 60% of the total
deaths. Registered cases as per 2018 data of Ministry of Health and Family welfare in
the last five years are equivalent to the population of the United Kingdom. India is at
top of the chart in groundwater abstraction with an estimated volume of 251 km
3 /year
(Gun 2012). As per world report, groundwater of one-third of India’s 725 districts is
not fit for drinking due to the contaminants being more than the permissible limit be
it arsenic, fluoride or salinity (Singh et al. 2019, 2020; Kumar et al. 2010, 2016; Das
et al. 2015). Conditions in the state of Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Assam, Odisha
and Madhya Pradesh are being severely criticized. As per NITI Aayog report of 2019,
India stands at 120th rank out of 122 countries in water quality index report, which
is not to be improved anytime soon, looking at the country’s demand increasing each
year.
Groundwater contamination exists when a man-made pollutant originating from
sources like combustion of fossils fuels, road salts and other dreadful chemicals gets
leached into the groundwater and ravage the water quality making its unsafe for
human or animals use as shown in Fig. (8.1). The contribution of groundwater in
every field is of critical importance be it irrigation, drinking, mining or industrial.
More than two billion people around the world depend on the groundwater aquifers
A. K. Thakur · M. Kumar (B)
Discipline of Earth Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, Gandhinagar, Gujarat
382355, India
e-mail: manish.kumar@iitgn.ac.in
© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021
M. Kumar et al. (eds.), Contaminants in Drinking and Wastewater Sources,
Springer Transactions in Civil and Environmental Engineering,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-4599-3_8
179