Groundwater Quality in the Yucatan Peninsula: Insights from Stable Isotope and Metals Analysis.

High surface water-groundwater connectivity characterizes watersheds underlain by karsts, increasing contaminant transport risks. However, karsts are highly complex, making research necessary to understand the transport of contaminants from the surface, through the aquifer, to discharge areas. In Yucatan, the lack of waste water treatment raises the risk of groundwater contamination.

Environmental Exposure of Children to Toxic Trace Elements (Hg, Cr, As) in an Urban Area of Yucatan, Mexico: Water, Blood, and Urine Levels.

Merida is the largest urban center in the Mexican State of Yucatan. Here domestic sewage is deposited in poorly built septic tanks and is not adequately treated. Because of contamination from such waste, water from the top 20 m of the aquifer is unsuitable for human consumption.

Water Consumption as Source of Arsenic, Chromium, and Mercury in Children Living in Rural Yucatan, Mexico: Blood and Urine Levels.

Studies investigating the correlation between metal content in water and metal levels in children are scarce worldwide, but especially in developing nations. Therefore, this study investigates the correlation between arsenic, chromium, and mercury concentrations in drinking and cooking water and in blood and urine samples collected from healthy and supposedly non-exposed children from a rural area in Yucatan, Mexico. Mercury in water shows concentrations above the recommended World Health Organization (WHO) value for drinking and cooking water.

Education, fish consumption, well water, chicken coops, and cooking fires: Using biogeochemistry and ethnography to study exposure of children from Yucatan, Mexico to metals and arsenic.

Around the world, the nocuous health effects of exposure to environmental contaminants, especially metals and Arsenic, are a growing health concern. This is especially the case in Mexico, where corruption and ineffective political administration are contributing to increasing deterioration in the environment. Importantly, shallow soils and the karstic nature of bedrock in Yucatan, Mexico make the subterranean aquifer especially susceptible to contamination because contaminates are carried to it with little resistance.

Mercury levels assessment and its relationship with oxidative stress biomarkers in children from three localities in Yucatan, Mexico.

Mercury (Hg) is a global pollutant that is released into the environment from geologic and anthropogenic sources. Once it enters an organism, it generates several toxicity mechanisms and oxidative stress has been proposed as the main one. Metal susceptibility is greater in children, which is a result of their physiology and behavior.

Fecal sterols, seasonal variability, and probable sources along the ring of cenotes, Yucatan, Mexico.

Rapid development in Yucatan has had a dramatic impact on the environment, especially the water supply. Groundwater is the only source of water in Yucatan, since surface water is virtually absent due to the karstic nature of the soil. The ring of cenotes (RC) is a geological feature which functions as a source of water and as nodes in the underground river system that canalizes water towards the coast.