pollutants Archives

Soil and groundwater contamination: An old and new issue needs to be solved

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Industrial and agricultural waste contaminate the soil and groundwater.

Dr Ming Zhang is an innovation coordinator at Geological Survey of Japan, AIST. Alongside his research group, he is advocating the importance of using interdisciplinary tools for sustainable remediation of contaminated soil and groundwater. Their research has shown that cost-effective and environment-friendly technologies such as the use of microorganisms to degrade organic contaminants and the use of minerals to immobilise […]

Is wood ash a silent killer in sub-Saharan Africa?

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Traditional cookstoves fuelled by locally sourced wood are found in homes across sub-Saharan Africa. Some 70% of the population use traditional cookstoves to burn wood, and as a result produce 19 megatonnes of ash every year across the region. The ash is generally dumped nearby or scattered on farmland, but what exactly is in the ash? Quantifying the amounts of heavy […]

Air pollution monitoring and its role in public health

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Air pollution monitoring is an important factor in air quality management. Both established long-term monitoring stations and short-term seasonal atmospheric field measurements are required to understand how atmospheric chemistry changes in response to air pollution regulation. Professor Schwab and his team from the University at Albany maintain long-term rural monitoring stations as well as highly specific mobile air pollution measurements […]