Sources and distribution of arsenic in groundwater and aquifers

A rapid growth in research on arsenic occurrence and behaviour in the environment has occurred over the last decade or so. Today, environmental arsenic problems have been recognised and documented in numerous countries across the world, in a range of geological and climatic settings. Arsenic can be mobilised naturally in water and soils through weathering reactions and microbiological activity. Its mobilisation can also be initiated or exacerbated through anthropogenic activities such as metal mining and groundwater abstraction, and in some cases through the use of arsenical pesticides in agriculture and wood preservation. The relative roles of these processes vary from region to region although most workers would accept the dominant role played by natural biogeochemical processes in the mobilisation of…