Synopses & Reviews
This book is dedicated to understanding the processes governing the fate of pollutants, originating from both agriculture and industry, in soils. Investigated here are the properties of the interacting materials, pollutant partitioning between the soil phases, pollutant behavior in soils affected by environmental factors, as well as the principles to be considered in defining pollutant behavior. The authors offer specialists working on soil pollution remediation the necessary background for their day-to-day work. The book will also be useful for graduate students starting research in this field.
Synopsis
The soil is the medium through which pollutants originating from human activities, both in agriculture and industry, move from the land surfaces to groundwater. Polluting substances are subject to complex physical, chemical and biological transformations during their movement through the soil. Their displacement depends on the transport properties of the water-air-soil system and on the molecular properties of the pollutants. Prediction of soil pollution and restoration of polluted soils requires an under standing of the processes controlling the fate of pollutants in the soil medium and of the dynamics of the contaminants in the un saturated zone. Our book was conceived. as a basic overview of the processes governing the behavior of pollutants as affected by soil constituents and environmental factors. It was written for the use of specialists working on soil and unsaturated zone pollution and restoration, as well as for graduate students starting research in this field. Since many specialists working on soil restoration lack a back ground in soil science or a knowledge of the properties of soil pollutants, we have included this information which forms the first part of the book. In the second part, we discuss the partitioning of pollutants between the aqueous, solid and gaseous phase of the soil medium. The retention, transformation and transport of pollutants in the soils form the third section."