• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.84-91
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• 2018

The present study deals with the management of groundwater resources of an important agriculture track of north-western part of Saudi Arabia. Due to strategic importance of the area efforts have been made to estimate aquifer proneness to attenuate contamination. This includes determining hydrodynamic behavior of the groundwater system. The important parameters of any vulnerability model are geological formations in the region, depth to water levels, soil, rainfall, topography, vadose zone, the drainage network and hydraulic conductivity, land use, hydrochemical data, water discharge, etc. All these parameters have greater control and helps determining response of groundwater system to a possible contaminant threat. A widely used DRASTIC model helps integrate these data layers to estimate vulnerability indices using GIS environment. DRASTIC parameters were assigned appropriate ratings depending upon existing data range and a constant weight factor. Further, land-use pattern map of study area was integrated with vulnerability map to produce pollution risk map. A comparison of DRASTIC model was done with GOD and AVI vulnerability models. Model validation was done with $NO_3$, $SO_4$ and Cl concentrations. These maps help to assess the zones of potential risk of contamination to the groundwater resources.

• KSBB Journal
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.1-6
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• 2011

Contamination of soils, groundwater, air and marine environment with hazardous and toxic chemicals is major side effect by the industrialization. Bioremediation, the application of microorganism or microbial processes to degrade environmental contaminant, is one of the new environmental technologies. Because of low water solubility and volatility of diesel, bioremediation is more efficient than physical and chemical methods. The purpose of this study is biodegradation of diesel in sand by using Rhodococcus fascians, a microorganism isolated from petroleum contaminated soil. This study was performed in the column containing sand obtained from sea sides. Changes in biodegradability of diesel with various flow rates, inoculum sizes, diesel concentrations, and pH were investigated in sand column. The optimal condition for biodegradation of diesel by R. fascians in sand column system was initial pH 8 and air flow rate of 30 mL/min. Higher diesel degradation was achieved at larger inoculum size and the diesel degradation by R. fascians was not inhibited by diesel concentration up to 5%.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.47 no.2
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• pp.74-83
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• 2014

Mercury exists naturally and as a man-made contaminant. The release of processed mercury can lead to a progressive increase in the amount of atmospheric mercury, which enters the atmospheric-soil-water distribution cycles where it can remain in circulation for years. Mercury poisoning is the result of exposure to mercury or mercury compounds resulting in various toxic effects depend on its chemical form and route of exposure. The major route of human exposure to methylmercury (MeHg) is largely through eating contaminated fish, seafood, and wildlife which have been exposed to mercury through ingestion of contaminated lower organisms. MeHg toxicity is associated with nervous system damage in adults and impaired neurological development in infants and children. Ingested mercury may undergo bioaccumulation leading to progressive increases in body burdens. This review addresses the systemic pathophysiology of individual organ systems associated with mercury poisoning. Mercury has profound cellular, cardiovascular, hematological, pulmonary, renal, immunological, neurological, endocrine, reproductive, and embryonic toxicological effects.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.227-236
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• 2003

Electrokinetic remediation technique offers the opportunity to extract heavy metals from soils with high plasticity. The experiment demonstrated the applicability of electrokinetic remediation on metal-mining deposit and the decision of the enhancement method for four kinds of bench-scale studies. According to the sequential extraction of heavy metals in the "I" mining deposit, Pb and Cu were mostly associated with residual fraction and Zn and Cd were associated with water soluble and residual fraction. Therefore, removable fractions by electrokinetic technology was determined by the sum of the fraction of water soluble and exchangeable, which is Cu : 19.53%, Pb : 1.42%, Cd : 52.82%, Zn : 57.28%, respectively. When considering electrical potential, volume of effluent, soil pH, and eliminated rate of contaminant, results determined by sum of each weight were Citric aic+SDS (13) > 0.1N $HNO_3$ (10) > HAc (8) > DDW (4). Therefore, citric acid and SDS mixed solution was determined the best enhancing agent for the remediation of metal mining deposit.g deposit.

• Journal of Wetlands Research
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.59-68
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• 2008

Three phases of development in construction projects (i.e. pre-development, construction and post construction) diversely effect the environment, hydraulics and ecosystem. Currently, the domestic environmental policy is in control of the various environmental hazards produced after completion of development operations. Nevertheless, with the enforcement of water pollution total amount management system, improving the water quality; also the water and ecosystem preservation law recommends enforcing the sediment management for development operations in order to lessen the negative impacts to the environment. Recently, the country is experiencing difficulties in various development project locations due to insufficiency of interpreting the fundamental data for sediment loss and miscalculation of soil loss unit loads of sediment. This research utilizes data from 2000 to 2005 discussing a total of 1,036 environment impact assessment projects gathered from various ministries and offices namely Ministry of Environment (MOE), Ministry of Agriculture, the Office of Forestry, and Ministry of Construction and Transportation. Moreover, quantity of sediment from high land agriculture reports involving contaminant discharge characteristic investigation previously did concerning old land agriculture and So-Yang lake non-point pollution source management area as well as management measured data from MOE. The findings of this study reveal that the highest soil loss rate occurred from mountain district for pre-development and post construction and sports facility during construction.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.261-271
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• 2007

Phytoremediation is an economic and environmentally friendly technique to remediate contaminated-soil. In this study, the effects of plants, rhizobacteria and physicochemical factors on phytoremediation have been reviewed. For successful phytoremediation, the selection of plants is primarily important. To remediate soil contaminated with petroleum hydrocarbon, raygrass (Lolium multiflorum lam), white mustard, vetch (Vicia villosa), tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea), legumes, poplar, and Pine (Pinus densiflora) were mainly applied, and the removal efficiency of petroleum hydrocarbon were ranged 68 to 99%. Corn (Zea mays), raygrass (Lolium multiflorum lam), vetch (Vicia villosa), mustard, clover (Trifolium repens), and tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea) were used for the removal of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon, and their removal efficiencies were 50-98%. Rhizobacteria play significant roles for phytoremediation because they can directly participate in the degradation of contaminant as well as promoting plants growth. The following rhizobacteria were preferred for phytoremediation: Azospirillum lipoferum, Enterobactor cloacae, Azospirillum brasilense, Pseudomonas putida, Burkholderia xenovorans, Comamonas testosterone, Pseudomonas gladioli, Azotobacter chroococcum, Bacillus megaterium, and Bacillus subtilis. Pysicochemical factors such as pH, temperature, nutrient, electron acceptor, water content, organic content, type of contaminants are consequential limiting factors for phytoremediation.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.120-127
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• 2002

This study was carried out to evaluate the effects of initial concentration on composting of diesel-contaminated soil. Silt loam was used in this study. Target contaminant, diesel oil, was spiked at about 2,000, 4,000, and 10,000mg/kg of dry soil, respectively. Mix ratio of soil to sludge was 1:0.3 as wet weight basis. Temperature was maintained at $20^{\circ}C$ Volatilization loss of TPH was 0.7-3.5% of the initial concentrations. Volatilization loss of TPH was not increased in proportion to the initial concentration. After 30 days of operation, 86% and 94% of the initial concentrations at about 2,000 and 10,000mg TPH/kg were biodegraded. Normal alkanes were degraded more rapidly than TPH. The compounds of C12 to C14 were volatilized greatly among n-alkanes. The first order degradation rate constants of about 2,000, 4,000, and 10,000mg TPH/kg were 0.079, 0.069, and 0.061/day, respectively. Produced-$CO_2$ and degraded-TPH were correlated highly regardless of the initial TPH concentration(r = 0.97-0.99).

• KSBB Journal
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.181-187
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• 2006

In this study, problems related with pH control in electrokinetic(EK) bioremediation of phenanthrene contaminated soil were observed, and the effects of pH control methods on the removal efficiency were investigated to search a further application strategy. In a preliminary experiment, it was found out by flask cultivation that a certain sulfate concentration was needed to degrade phenanthrene well using Sphingomonas sp. 3Y. However, when $MgSO_4$ was used as sulfate source in EK bioremediation, the bacterial activity reduced seriously due to the abrupt decrease of pHs in soil and bioreactor by the combination of magnesium and hydroxyl ions. When another strong buffering compound was used to control the pH problem, the good maintenance of the bacterial activity and pHs could be observed, but the removal efficiency decreased largely. When a low concentration of $MgSO_4$ was added, the removal efficiency decreased somewhat in spite of the good maintenance of neutral pHs. With the addition of NaOH as a neutralizing agent, the removal efficiency also decreased because of the increase of soil pH. Consequently the selection of electrolyte composition was a very important factor in EK bioremediation and some sulfate sources suitable for both bacterial activity and contaminant degradation should be investigated.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.221-227
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• 2002

Column experiments were performed to evaluate the removal efficiency of soil vapor extraction (SVE) iota TCE (trichloroethylene) and toluene in soil. Homogeneous Ottawa sands and real soils collected from contaminated area were used to investigate the effect of soil properties and SVE operation conditions on the removal efficiency. In column teats with two different sizes of Ottawa sand, the maximum effluent TCE concentration in a coarse sand column was 442 mg/L and 337 mg/L in a fine sand column. However, after 20 liter gas flushing, the effluent concentrations were very similar and more than 90% of initial TCE mass were removed from the column. For two real contaminated soil columns, the maximum effluent concentration decreased 50% compared with that in the homogeneous Ottawa coarse sand column, but 99% of initial TCE mass were extracted from the column within 40 liter air flushing, suggesting that SVE is very available to remove volatile NAPLs in the contaminated soil. To investigate the effect of contaminant existing time on the removal efficiency, an Ottawa sand column was left stable for one week after TCE was injected and the gas extraction was applied into the column. Its effluent concentration trend was very similar to those for other Ottawa sand columns except that the residual TCE after the air flushing showed relatively high. Column tests with different water contents were performed and results showed high removal efficiency even in a high water content sand column. Toluene as one of BTEX compounds was used in an Ottawa sand column and a real soil column. Removal trends were similar to those in TCE contaminated columns and more than 98% of initial toluene mass were removed with SVE in both column.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.35 no.7
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• pp.518-524
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• 2013

A pilot-scale test-bed was operated employing three soils with different grain sizes dredged from the Nakdong River to obtain the design and operation parameters of the multi-purpose filtration pond, such as the filtrate productivity of the filter sand, the appropriate removal period of the surface clogging and the contaminant removal efficiency. The cross-flow velocities were applied stepwise ranging from 0 to 40 cm/sec in order to simulate the various velocities in the artificial stream of the pond. Results showed that a filtrate production rate of 5~3 $m^3/m^2-day$ was maintained by removing the surface clogging every 7 to 13 days and that the filtrate quality was not affected by the factors of the filtrate production rate, the grain size of the filter sand and the cross-flow velocity. Results also showed that most of the removal occurred within 50 cm of the top soil and that the removal efficiencies with the filtration distance of 2.4 m were 80~95% for turbidity, 20~30% for COD, 75~90% for BOD, 5~20% for total nitrogen and 20~60% for total phosphorus, which suggested that particulate matters had a high removal efficiency.