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Combatting groundwater pollution

November 16, 1998

Groundwater pollution poses a mounting threat to environmental sustainability and public health in Europe, as many countries are becoming increasingly dependent on groundwater for their drinking water supplies. As this water becomes more and more polluted, they are currently faced with two options: develop increasingly complex and expensive methods of cleaning the water; or risk environmental degradation and associated consequences to human health of drinking polluted water.
The Göteborg conference, which is being organised as part of a new ESF scientific programme on Groundwater Pollution, aims to identify those areas where fundamental and strategic research conducted at a European level has the most potential for use in maintaining clean groundwater supplies. Determining whether prevention of a specified kind of pollution is urgent requires research into the fate and impact of the pollutant, or mixture of pollutants. Only then, will scientists and policy makers have the basis for putting in place appropriate remedial measures to degrade, immobilise or contain them.
Over four days, 26 scientists from a wide range of backgrounds will discuss what type of research on which groups of groundwater pollutants is most needed. For instance, at present there is only a limited amount of information available on how (or even if) toxic chemicals are eventually eliminated from the subterranean environment. Chemical and physical processes are important for some pollutants but microbial metabolism is clearly the principal means of degradation for others. A better understanding of the catalytic mechanisms and biochemical strategies involved in biotransformations of groundwater pollutants would help in the design of less toxic and more readily degradable alternative industrial and agricultural chemicals. It would also help in designing better strategies to deal with future pollution incidents.
However, there are equally pressing research needs in other areas. While the nature and biological basis of the toxicity of a limited number of pollutants are known, others, for example hormones from birth control pills which have recently been implicated in an apparent drop in male fertility, are only now being identified and many remain unknown. In addition, the environmental behaviour and degree of inherent toxicity of many compounds for a variety of life forms, as well as the effect of the passage of these chemicals into the groundwater, also need further study.
The conference will set the agenda for next four years' activity in the ESF's Groundwater Pollution programme. The programme aims to serve as a 'seed corn' activity to develop long-term multidisciplinary and multinational research collaborations and projects. It was developed from a proposal put forward by the ESF's EERO Committee which provides the ESF with expert advice on pollution issues (see notes for editors).
The conference's discussions will also feed into a specially convened ESF workshop in Seville, Spain, in January 1999 on the environmental disaster in the Do'±ana National Park in Southern Spain. The accidental discharge of acid waters and pyritic slurry into the Guadiamar river from the Aznac'³llar mine is likely to leave the area chronically polluted by micronised arsenic pyrites. Scientists at the workshop will discuss the most appropriate approaches to deal with this and similar disasters.
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CNRS (Délégation Ile-de-France Ouest & Nord)