Issue |
E3S Web Conf.
Volume 125, 2019
The 4th International Conference on Energy, Environment, Epidemiology and Information System (ICENIS 2019)
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | 01001 | |
Number of page(s) | 12 | |
Section | Environmental Conservation | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/e3sconf/201912501001 | |
Published online | 28 October 2019 |
Methods and Advances in the Forensic Analysis of Contaminated Rivers
Department of Geosciences and Natural Resources, Western Carolina University, Cullowhee - USA
* Corresponding author: jmiller@wcu.edu
Trace metals and metalloids are a common and persistent form of riverine (river) contamination and are derived from a wide variety of sources, including mining and milling operations, industrial activities, urban runoff, agricultural chemicals, and atmospheric pollution, among a host of others. Documentation of trace metal sources and dispersal pathways in riverine ecosystems is essential to mitigate their potentially harmful effects to human and ecosystem health and is often required from a legal (environmental forensic) perspective to assess liability for the costs of remediation. Unfortunately, documenting the sources and source contributions of trace metals in rivers has proven difficult, time-intensive, and costly. Herein, a four-component, interdisciplinary framework is proposed to efficiently identify the sources and source contributions of trace metals in alluvial sediments where multiple natural and/or anthropogenic sources exist. The components include (1) the analysis of the river’s alluvial stratigraphic architecture and geomorphic history, (2) the temporal correlation of geochemically characterized alluvial deposits to potential anthropogenic trace metal sources, (3) the analysis of the spatial variations in selected geochemical parameters, and (4) the use of geochemical and/or isotopic tracers to quantitatively estimate the contributions of trace metals from the defined natural and anthropogenic sources. The four components are not intended to be exhaustive; the framework may require modification following multiple lines of evidence approach, in which additional methods and data are added to the investigation until there is confidence that all trace metal sources and their contributions have been effectively defined.
Key words: Environmental Forensics / Trace Metals / Contaminated Rivers
© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2019
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Current usage metrics show cumulative count of Article Views (full-text article views including HTML views, PDF and ePub downloads, according to the available data) and Abstracts Views on Vision4Press platform.
Data correspond to usage on the plateform after 2015. The current usage metrics is available 48-96 hours after online publication and is updated daily on week days.
Initial download of the metrics may take a while.