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This book provides an introductory understanding of fluvial
geomorphic principles and how these principles can be integrated
with geochemical data to cost-effectively characterize, assess and
remediate contaminated rivers. The book stresses the importance of
needing to understand both geomorphic and geochemical processes.
Thus, the overall presentation is first an analysis of physical and
chemical processes and, second, a discussion of how an
understanding of these processes can be applied to specific aspects
of site assessment and remediation. Such analyses provide the basis
for a realistic prediction of the kinds of environmental responses
that might be expected, for example, during future changes in
climate or land-use.
This book provides an introductory understanding of fluvial
geomorphic principles and how these principles can be integrated
with geochemical data to cost-effectively characterize, assess and
remediate contaminated rivers. The book stresses the importance of
needing to understand both geomorphic and geochemical processes.
Thus, the overall presentation is first an analysis of physical and
chemical processes and, second, a discussion of how an
understanding of these processes can be applied to specific aspects
of site assessment and remediation. Such analyses provide the basis
for a realistic prediction of the kinds of environmental responses
that might be expected, for example, during future changes in
climate or land-use.
This book takes an in-depth look at the theory and methods inherent
in the tracing of riverine sediments. Examined tracers include
multi-elemental concentration data, fallout radionuclides (e.g.,
210Pb, 137Cs, 7Be), radiogenic isotopes (particularly those of Pb,
Sr, and Nd), and novel ("non-traditional") stable isotopes (e.g.,
Cd, Cu, Hg, and Zn), the latter of which owe their application to
recent advances in analytical chemistry. The intended goal is not
to replace more 'traditional' analyses of the riverine sediment
system, but to show how tracer/fingerprinting studies can be used
to gain insights into system functions that would not otherwise be
possible. The text, then, provides researchers and catchment
managers with a summary of the strengths and limitations of the
examined techniques in terms of their temporal and spatial
resolution, data requirements, and the uncertainties in the
generated results. The use of environmental tracers has increased
significantly during the past decade because it has become clear
that documentation of sediment and sediment-associated contaminant
provenance and dispersal is essential to mitigate their potentially
harmful effects on aquatic ecosystems. Moreover, the use of
monitoring programs to determine the source of sediments to a water
body has proven to be a costly, labor intensive, long-term process
with a spatial resolution that is limited by the number of
monitoring sites that can be effectively maintained. Alternative
approaches, including the identification and analysis of eroded
upland areas and the use of distributed modeling routines also have
proven problematic. The application of tracers within riverine
environments has evolved such that they focus on sediments from two
general sources: upland areas and specific, localized,
anthropogenic point sources. Of particular importance to the former
is the development of geochemical fingerprinting methods that
quantify sediment provenance (and to a much lesser degree,
sediment-associated contaminants) at the catchment scale. These
methods have largely developed independently of the use of tracers
to document the source and dispersal pathways of contaminated
particles from point-sources of anthropogenic pollution at the
reach- to river corridor-scale. Future studies are likely to begin
merging the strengths of both approaches while relying on multiple
tracer types to address management and regulatory issues,
particularly within the context of the rapidly developing field of
environmental forensics.
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