Special Issue "Soil Pollution: Prevention and Mitigation"

Guest Editor
Dr. Sayed M. Hassan
Senior Research Scientist, Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, and Director of the Laboratory for Environmental Analysis, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA
Website: http://www.cropsoil.uga.edu
E-Mail:
Phone: +1 706 227 7993
Fax: +1 706 542 0914
Interests: hyphenation of chromatography and mass spectrometry for trace analysis of organic pollutants and metal speciation; abiotic remediation of halogenated organic contaminants (VOC's, chlorinated solvents, pesticides, PCB's and others) in the environment using mixtures of zero-valent metals and metal sulfides; enhancing bioremediation of contaminated soils using metabolic substrates; artificial wetlands in bio-remediation studies

Dear Colleagues,

Soil pollution is the build-up in soils of toxic compounds, chemicals, salts, radioactive materials, or disease causing agents, which have adverse effects on plant growth and animal health.  Trace elements are important pollutants; many of them are toxic even at low concentrations.  Primary sources are natural mineral deposits, mining and smelting of metalliferous ores, municipal wastes and sewage.  Contamination also arise from the rupture of underground storage tanks, application of agrochemicals, percolation of contaminated surface water to subsurface strata, oil and fuel dumping, leaching of wastes from landfills or direct discharge of industrial wastes.

In view of the countless bad impacts, developed and most developing countries have put a major legal framework and clean-up programs to deal with soil pollution. In countries that have little control on pollutant dumping, soil is contaminated with chemicals that damage the immune and endocrine systems causing cancer, multiple birth defects and gene mutation, in humans and in animals.

Principal strategies for soil remediation include excavation and disposal away from human or sensitive ecosystem.  Aeration and thermal remediation to volatize chemical contaminants out of the soil. Bioremediation as well as phytoremediation. Assessment and follow up of the remediation process is done through measurement of soil chemicals and application of computer models to study transport and fate of soil chemicals.

For this special issue on Soil Pollution: Prevention and Mitigation, I’m eager to entertain papers that enhance the readers understanding of waste management, environmental remediation, analysis of environmental pollutants, degradation of agrochemicals, impact of soil amendments and strategies to convert waste into harmless soil amendments.

Sayed M. Hassan, Ph.D.
Guest Editor

Submission

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• soil pollution,
• soil remediation,
• environmental modeling
• phytoremediation
• soil analysis