http://www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph/special_issues/science-groundwater/ Dear Colleagues, Growing industrial activities and urbanization have lead to the multiplication of pollution sources and to widespread dispersion of contaminants in the environment, leading at the extreme to regional scale contamination of soils and groundwater. The regional component of the problem requires specific approaches from risk assessment to risk management steps. This special issue is to describe recent research advances in this context: development of regional-scale risk assessment methods and indicators, including water quality trends at the scale of the surface water / groundwater body, megasite approaches and, more specifically, methodologies specifically devoted to risk management and remediation at the the regional level. Dr. Serge Brouyère Guest Editor Submission All manuscripts should be submitted to ijerph@mdpi.com with a copy to the Guest Editor. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. Papers will be published continuously (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website. Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are refereed through a peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. The Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health (IJERPH, ISSN 1660-4601) was launched in 2004 and is an international peer-reviewed Open Access monthly journal published by MDPI. This journal is covered by the Science Citation Index Expanded (Web of Science), Current Contents/Agriculture, Biology, and Environmental Sciences, Chemical Abstracts, Medline (PubMed) and EMBASE. The IJERPH maintains a rapid editorial procedure and a rigorous peer-review system. Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this Open Access journal is 1000 CHF per accepted paper. http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/7/10/3595/ Risk-based assessment is a way to evaluate the potential hazards of contaminated sites and is based on considering linkages between pollution sources, pathways, and receptors. These linkages can be broken by source reduction, pathway management, and modifying exposure of the receptors. In Taiwan, the Soil and Groundwater Pollution Remediation Act (SGWPR Act) uses one target regulation to evaluate the contamination status of soil and groundwater pollution. More than 600 sites contaminated with heavy metals (HMs) have been remediated and the costs of this process are always high. Besides using soil remediation techniques to remove contaminants from these sites, the selection of possible remediation methods to obtain rapid risk reduction is permissible and of increasing interest. This paper discusses previous soil remediation techniques applied to different sites in Taiwan and also clarified the differences of risk assessment before and after soil remediation obtained by applying different risk assessment models. This paper also includes many case studies on: (1) food safety risk assessment for brown rice growing in a HMs-contaminated site; (2) a tiered approach to health risk assessment for a contaminated site; (3) risk assessment for phytoremediation techniques applied in HMs-contaminated sites; and (4) soil remediation cost analysis for contaminated sites in Taiwan. http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/7/10/3595/ Mon, 11 Oct 2010 00:00:00 CEST International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 2010-10-11 7 10 Article 3595 3614 1660-4601 Health Risk-Based Assessment and Management of Heavy Metals-Contaminated Soil Sites in Taiwan 2010-10-11 doi: 10.3390/ijerph7103596 Hung-Yu Lai Zeng-Yei Hseu Ting-Chien Chen Bo-Ching Chen Horng-Yuh Guo Zueng-Sang Chen http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/7/8/3100/ Soils contaminated with hydrocarbons (C10–C50), PAHS, lead and other heavy metals were recently found in the banks of two major rivers in southern Québec. Alluvial soils are contaminated over a distance of 100 kilometers. Eight sampling sites, including some located in agriculture areas (farm woodlots) have been selected to compare air pollution (aerosol fallout and rainout) and river pollution values. The concentrations detected in soil profiles for As, Cd and Pb vary between 3.01 to 37.88 mg kg−1 (As), 0.11 to 0.81 mg kg−1 (Cd) 12.32 to 149.13 mg kg−1 (Pb). These metallic elements are considered highly toxic and can harm wildlife and human health at high levels. The maximum concentration of Pb (149.13 mg kg−1) in soils of the riparian zone is twelve times higher than the average Pb concentration found in a natural state evaluated at 15.3 mg kg−1 (SD 17.5). Pb concentrations in soils of agricultural areas (woodland control sites) range between 12 and 22 mg kg−1, and given that these values are recorded in surrounding cultivated land, the issue of the quality of agricultural products (crops and forage) to feed livestock or destined for human consumption must be further addressed in detail. http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/7/8/3100/ Thu, 05 Aug 2010 00:00:00 CEST International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 2010-08-05 7 8 Article 3100 3114 1660-4601 Comparative Assessment of Soil Contamination by Lead and Heavy Metals in Riparian and Agricultural Areas (Southern Québec, Canada) 2010-08-05 doi: 10.3390/ijerph7083100 Diane Saint-Laurent Marlies Hähni Julien St-Laurent Francis Baril