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Papers
61,005 resultsShowing papers similar to Environmental chemistry, toxicity and health risk assessment of groundwater: Environmental persistence and management strategies
ClearGroundwater in the age of plastic
This review examines microplastic contamination of groundwater globally, synthesizing studies on occurrence, transport pathways through soil and aquifer matrices, and the emerging implications for drinking water safety and groundwater ecosystem health.
Groundwater Pollution and Contamination: Sources, Impacts, Management, and the Integration of AI/ML for Future Solutions
This review covers the sources, health impacts, and management strategies for groundwater pollution, including contamination from agricultural runoff, industrial waste, and landfill leachate. While broadly focused on water quality, the paper is relevant to microplastic concerns because contaminated groundwater is a drinking water source for billions of people, and emerging pollutants including microplastics are increasingly found in these systems.
Understanding Microplastic Pollution in Groundwater: Pathways, Health Implications and Solutions
This review examines how microplastics infiltrate groundwater systems through pathways including landfills, agricultural runoff, water treatment facilities, and aging plastic pipes. Researchers found that once in groundwater, microplastics can persist for long periods and degrade water quality while interacting with other subsurface contaminants. The study highlights that groundwater microplastic contamination is an underappreciated threat to one of humanity's most important freshwater sources.
Detecting Emerging Contaminants in Groundwater: Risks to Ecosystems and Human Health
This review examines how emerging contaminants including pharmaceuticals, personal care products, and microplastics infiltrate groundwater through landfill leaching, septic systems, and agricultural runoff. Researchers highlight the challenges of detecting these pollutants at low concentrations and their ability to persist and spread through groundwater systems. The study emphasizes the urgent need for advanced detection technologies and stronger regulatory frameworks to protect groundwater resources.
Future Global Groundwater Quality Challenges
This review outlines emerging and legacy groundwater quality challenges that threaten drinking water security globally, including microplastic contamination alongside chemical and microbial pollutants. The authors call for improved monitoring and treatment infrastructure to protect future groundwater supplies.
Groundwater quality: global challenges, emerging threats and novel approaches
This review highlights global groundwater quality challenges including emerging contaminants and antimicrobial resistance, emphasizing the need for significantly improved monitoring to identify and mitigate threats from historical and future pollution sources.
Mobilization, Speciation, and Transformation of Organic and Inorganic Contaminants in Soil–Groundwater Ecosystems
Not relevant to microplastics — this review covers the mobilization, speciation, and transformation of organic and inorganic contaminants (such as heavy metals and pesticides) in soil and groundwater ecosystems.
Control strategies for microplastic pollution in groundwater
This review summarizes how microplastics migrate from soil into groundwater and the strategies available to control this contamination. Researchers found that microplastic concentrations in groundwater vary by region, with factors like soil type and land use influencing how particles travel underground. The study highlights the urgency of developing effective control measures since groundwater is a primary drinking water source for much of the world's population.
Trends of global concerns on groundwater contamination and future directions
A bibliometric review of nearly 39,000 groundwater contamination studies from 1991–2024 tracks a shift in research focus from classic pollutants toward emerging contaminants including microplastics, PFAS, and pharmaceuticals, while noting most of these remain unregulated. The review is relevant to microplastic risk assessment because it identifies groundwater — a source of drinking water for billions — as a frontier where microplastic research and regulation urgently need to catch up.
Research advances of micro/nanoplastics in groundwater: occurrence, environmental impacts and control strategies
This review examines the emerging issue of microplastic and nanoplastic contamination in groundwater systems, covering their sources, distribution patterns, potential environmental risks, and removal strategies. Researchers highlight that the strong heterogeneity and complexity of underground environments make studying microplastic migration particularly challenging. The study identifies significant knowledge gaps in sampling methods and calls for more research into how microplastics move through groundwater aquifers.
Groundwater systems under siege: The silent invasion of microplastics and cock-tails worldwide
This review reveals that groundwater, a critical drinking water source for billions of people, is increasingly contaminated with microplastics from surface pollution seeping downward through soil. Unlike ocean and river pollution, groundwater microplastic contamination has received far less research attention, leaving major gaps in understanding how plastics migrate underground. The findings are alarming because contaminated groundwater directly enters drinking water supplies with little to no treatment in many regions.
Review of Current Issues and Management Strategies of Microplastics in Groundwater Environments
This review synthesizes current knowledge on microplastic contamination in groundwater, identifying it as a substantially understudied environment compared to surface water and marine systems. The authors describe pathways by which microplastics enter aquifers and discuss management strategies for this largely invisible contamination route.
Sources and Consequences of Groundwater Contamination
Researchers reviewed sources and health consequences of groundwater contamination across India, China, Pakistan, Turkey, Ethiopia, and Nigeria, summarizing both geogenic pollutants (naturally occurring) and anthropogenic contaminants while identifying key gaps in remediation technology and monitoring capacity.
Microplastics in the soil-groundwater environment: Aging, migration, and co-transport of contaminants – A critical review
This review examines how microplastics behave in the soil-groundwater environment, including how they age through weathering and oxidation, migrate through soil layers, and carry other contaminants along with them. The study suggests that aging increases the ability of microplastics to adsorb pollutants like heavy metals and pesticides, potentially facilitating their transport into groundwater supplies.
A Review of the Status, Effects, Prevention, and Remediation of Groundwater Contamination for Sustainable Environment
This review examines the state of groundwater contamination worldwide, including pollution from industrial chemicals, pesticides, and plastic-related contaminants. Unsafe water contributed to 1.2 million deaths globally in 2019, with low-income countries disproportionately affected. The paper discusses various cleanup methods and emphasizes the urgent need to protect groundwater, which is a primary source of drinking water for billions of people.
Groundwater resources: Challenges & solutions
This review examined the global challenges facing groundwater resources, including over-extraction, contamination by agricultural chemicals and microplastics, and salinization. It assessed emerging solutions including managed aquifer recharge, advanced monitoring, and international governance frameworks for sustainable groundwater management.
Global Occurrence and Impact of Emerging Contaminants in Drinking Water: A Comparative Analysis of Environmental and Health Effects
This comparative analysis reviews the global occurrence of emerging drinking water contaminants — including pharmaceuticals, pesticides, microplastics, and PFAS — across different regions and evaluates their associated health and environmental risks.
Microplastics in groundwater: Environmental fate and possible interactions with coexisting contaminants
This review looked at how microplastics end up in groundwater and what happens when they interact with other pollutants already present. Researchers found that microplastic contamination in groundwater varies widely around the world, with levels ranging from zero to nearly 7,000 particles per liter. The study highlights that microplastics can act as carriers for other harmful substances, potentially increasing their ability to spread through groundwater and pose risks to ecosystems and human health.
An Overview of Microplastic Contamination in Groundwater: Sources, Transport Pathways, and Environmental Implications
This review examined microplastic contamination in groundwater systems, an area that has received less research attention compared to surface water. Researchers identified key sources and transport pathways for microplastics entering groundwater, including infiltration through soil and fractured rock, and highlighted the environmental implications for drinking water supplies.
Microplastic accumulation in groundwater: Data-scaled insights and future research
This data-driven review of nearly 400 groundwater samples worldwide found that microplastics are present in both shallow and deep groundwater, with open groundwater sources showing higher contamination than enclosed aquifers. The findings are relevant to human health because groundwater supplies drinking water for billions of people, and the study identifies key gaps in our understanding of how microplastics accumulate underground.
Microplastics in groundwater: a global analysis
Researchers conducted a global groundwater sampling study to characterize microplastic contamination in aquifer systems worldwide, investigating transport mechanisms and fate of particles in anoxic subsurface environments where knowledge gaps remain despite extensive research on surface water systems.
Contaminants of emerging concern in the urban aquifers of Barcelona: Do they hamper the use of groundwater?
Researchers compiled data on contaminants of emerging concern — including pharmaceuticals, benzotriazoles, and pesticides — in Barcelona's urban aquifers, finding that several compounds including azithromycin, lamotrigine, and gabapentin pose intermediate to very high health risks, particularly for young children, challenging the viability of this groundwater as a drinking source.
Global status, risk assessment, and knowledge gaps of microplastics in groundwater: A bibliometric analysis
This review analyzed 215 published studies on microplastics in groundwater and found that this area of research is still in its early stages compared to surface water studies. Evidence indicates that microplastic contamination is present in groundwater worldwide, but sampling methods and reported results vary widely. The authors identified significant knowledge gaps in understanding how microplastics move through underground water systems and what risks they may pose to drinking water sources.
Urban and Groundwater Microplastic Contamination: Sources, Distribution, Impacts, and Remediation Technologies
This review addressed microplastic contamination in urban environments and groundwater systems, covering source pathways from roads and stormwater runoff, distribution through urban catchments, and potential impacts on drinking water aquifers. It highlighted groundwater as an understudied but critical exposure pathway.