Evidence from the past shows that pesticide use in populated areas may impact groundwater quality. The approval of herbicides such as diflufenican and glyphosate for use on paved and unpaved gravel surfaces in the European Union is based on their behaviour and fate in agricultural soils. However, this might be very different from their fate in gravel surfaces.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMicropollutants in groundwater are given significant attention by water companies and authorities due to an increasing awareness that they might be present even above the legal threshold values. As part of our investigations of the possibility to remove the common groundwater pollutant 2,6-dichlorobenzamide (BAM) by introducing the efficient BAM degrader Aminobacter sp. MSH1 into biologically active sand filters, we investigated if the strain adheres to filters containing various filter materials and if the initial adherence and subsequent degradation of BAM could be optimized.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFChloroform has been for a long time considered only as an anthropogenic contaminant. The presence of chloroform in forest soil and groundwater has been widely demonstrated. The frequent detection of chloroform in groundwater in absence of other contaminants suggests that chloroform is likely produced naturally.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIncreasing amounts of livestock manure are being applied to agricultural soil, but it is unknown to what extent this may be associated with contamination of aquatic recipients and groundwater if microorganisms are transported through the soil under natural weather conditions. The objective of this study was therefore to evaluate how injection and surface application of pig slurry on intact sandy clay loam soil cores influenced the leaching of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium bacteriophage 28B, Escherichia coli, and Cryptosporidium parvum oocysts. All three microbial tracers were detected in the leachate on day 1, and the highest relative concentration was detected on the fourth day (0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEnviron Monit Assess
March 2012
Chloroform is one of the most frequently found anthropogenic groundwater contaminants. Recent investigations, however, suggested that chloroform in groundwater may also originate from a natural production in soils. As societies response to the occurrence of chloroform in groundwater may depend upon its origin as anthropogenic or naturally produced, test methods are needed to measure the potential of natural soil chloroform production.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTransfer of zoonotic bacterial pathogens through intact soil columns was monitored in an outdoor lysimeter over 36 d. Manure spiked with Salmonella enterica serovar Senftenberg was applied to either the soil surface or injected 0.08 m into the soil to compare leaching associated with the two manure application methods.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPollution with organochlorines has received major attention due to various environmental effects, but it is now increasingly recognized, that they also take part in biogeochemical cycles and that natural background concentrations exist for several chlorinated compounds. We here report the natural occurrence and cycling of organic compounds with a trichloromethyl moiety in common. The study areas are temperate coniferous forests.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTrichloroacetic acid (TCAA) is a pollutant with several sources and is also formed naturally in soil. We show that almost all investigated environmental compartments (soil, soil water, groundwater, spruce needles and throughfall, but not rain) contain compounds, which make false positives in the thermal decarboxylation method often used for determination of TCAA in environmental samples. The compounds are dominating quantitatively over TCAA in soil, soil water and groundwater, while TCAA is dominating in needle and throughfall samples.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAlthough many areas in Denmark are intensively agricultured, the discharge of nitrate from groundwater aquifers to surface water is often lower than expected. In this study it is experimentally demonstrated that anoxic nitrate reduction in sandy sediment containing pyrite is a microbially mediated denitrification process with pyrite as the primary electron donor. The process demonstrates a temperature dependency (Q10) of 1.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPhenylurea herbicides are used worldwide, and often pollute surface- and groundwater in concentrations exceeding the limit value for drinking water (0.1 microg l(-1)). Bacteria degrade phenylurea herbicides by successive N-dealkylation to substituted aniline products.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe toxic glycoalkaloids produced by the potato plant (Solanum tuberosum L.) have previously been found in upper soil from a potato field during several months. Further insight into the fate of the glycoalkaloids is needed, as only little information about their degradation in soil is available.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe toxic glycoalkaloids, alpha-solanine and alpha-chaconine, are present in all parts of the potato plant and are possibly transferred to the terrestrial environment. The amounts of glycoalkaloids in plant, soil, and groundwater were followed in a potato field to investigate their distribution and fate during the season. The amount of glycoalkaloids in the plants was up to 25 kg/ha during maturity and decreased to below 0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA method has been developed for the analysis of (14)CO(2) evolution from the mineralization of (14)C-labelled organic compounds in soil samples. The new method is less space demanding and substantially cuts down laborious manual work compared to the traditional incubation bottle method used. Furthermore, the use of scintillation cocktail is largely reduced with the new method.
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