China
Africa
Explore chapters and articles related to this topic
Groundwater Hydrology, Soil and Groundwater Contamination Assessment and Monitoring
Published in Rong Yue, Fundamentals of Environmental Site Assessment and Remediation, 2018
A source is the environmental medium/media containing elevated contaminant concentrations associated with a release. Some risk-based corrective action (RBCA) programs define the source to be the original cause of the contamination; however, it is possible that by the time a site becomes a contamination site, the original source has been eliminated, and the current source of contamination is soil and/or groundwater. Items to consider when determining the source are included in the following list. Some of the specifics may be determined based on historical information; others will need to be determined during site assessment.
Environmental Regulations and Jurisdictions
Published in Rengasamy Kasinathan, Environmental Compliance Guide for Facility Managers and Engineers, 2023
Both point-source and non-point-sources of water pollution can disrupt entire aquatic ecosystems. Point-source water pollution from an identifiable source, such as factories, can be easily regulated. Nonpoint-source water pollution from unknown sources such as agricultural runoff accounts for the majority of water pollution and is more difficult to control. The runoff can cause algal blooms, resulting in low-oxygen conditions that harm aquatic life. Other negative effects of nonpoint-source pollution include the degradation of coastal and marine environments and contamination of drinking water sources.
Steps in Environmental Health Policymaking
Published in Barry L. Johnson, Maureen Y. Lichtveld, Environmental Policy and Public Health, 2017
Barry L. Johnson, Maureen Y. Lichtveld
In general, this body of environmental law gave federal agencies (e.g., the EPA) the authority to command and control (also called regulations and standards) actions to control workplace and community sources of specific environmental hazards. Sources of pollution such as companies, businesses, and government agencies that are required to comply with specific regulations are called the regulated community. As an example, companies that generate electric power are a regulated industry under the provisions of the CAAct.
Model-Based Clustering of Nonparametric Weighted Networks With Application to Water Pollution Analysis
Published in Technometrics, 2020
Water pollution is the leading cause of deaths and diseases, and it is a major global problem. It is known that nearly 80% of the world’s population lives in areas exposed to high levels of threat to water security (Vörösmarty et al. 2010). The recent national report on water quality by EPA (2017) pointed out that 46% of rivers, 21% of lakes, 18% of coastal waters, and 32% of wetlands in the United States are in poor biological condition or rated poor based on a water quality index. The major pollutant sources include agriculture, atmospheric deposition, construction, industrial production, municipal sewage, resource extraction, spills, and urban runoff. They pose severe health hazards like cancer, cardiovascular, respiratory, neurologic, and developmental damage. This work is motivated by assessing the potential environmental threat of coal mining in Ohio watershed of Pennsylvania through increased sulfate concentrations in the surface water, which is an important scientific problem in geoscience. Bernhardt et al. (2012) mapped surface coal mining of southern West Virginia and linked these maps with water quality and biological data of 223 streams. When these coal mines occupy >5.4% of their contributing watershed area, the sulfate concentrations within catchments could exceed 50 mg/L (Niu et al. 2018). Residential proximity to heavy coal production is associated with higher risk for cardiopulmonary disease, chronic lung disease, hypertension, and kidney disease (Hendryx and Ahern 2008). The study of water-quality risks will help the whole society manage them now and in future.
Phytomanagement of trace element polluted fields with aromatic plants: supporting circular bio-economies
Published in International Journal of Phytoremediation, 2023
Anabel Saran, Diego Much, Jaco Vangronsveld, Luciano Merini
Governmental regulations are essential in both, source control and remediation of pollution. Regulatory standards for trace element levels have been established for agricultural soils (Table 1), but wide discrepancies exist among different countries regarding the critical threshold values for each element.