Environmental and Human Health
Industrial and household pollution jeopardize the health of the environment and humans. Soil contamination results from many causes, including improper disposal of hazardous substances, and pesticide and nutrient runoff. Pollutants often move between soil, water and air. Human exposure to pollutants such as arsenic, benzene, cyanide, lead, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and other chemicals can lead to developmental problems, chronic illness and death. Over the past 30 years, soil scientists have identified new ways to limit the mobility of toxins and rehabilitate polluted land. Innovations in agronomic, crop, and soil sciences enable land managers to adopt practices, which mitigate soil, water and air pollution, providing important health services to both the environment and humans.
Research and Development
-
Soil Remediation and Restoration: Support for fundamental research allowing soil scientists, in concert with scientists from other disciplines, to remediate soil contamination is needed to build national databases such as the EPA Superfund Sediment Resource Center.
-
Vadose Zone Mapping and Geostatistics: These tools improve understanding of groundwater flow, contaminant transport, nuclear waste management and enhanced hydrocarbon recovery. Geoelectrical and geostatistical‐based methods enable screening of unregulated landfills for the presence of leachate and deliver an approximation of the vertical/spatial extent of soil and groundwater pollution.
-
Environmental Remediation: The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Biological and Environmental Research includes an Environmental Remediation Sciences Research program and a Environmental Remediation subprogram, which support critical advances of tools used in contaminated site restoration. The Office of Environmental Management also supports high‐priority soil and groundwater remediation at many Superfund sites.
-
Fate and Transport of Toxic Materials: Soil science engages in identifying and characterizing the fate and transport of toxic chemicals in the environment. Soil science is used to predict the movement and alteration of chemical and infectious agents over time and space, and to understand how people are exposed to such materials and what can be done to minimize or prevent such exposures.
Policy Tools
-
Share this page:
© Copyright 2012 - Copyright Information, Privacy Statement, and Terms of Use
5585 Guilford Road | Madison, WI 53711-5801 | 608-273-8080 | Fax 608-273-2021
Certification: 608-273-8085 | Fax 608-273-2081
