Page 7 - DENIN-2015

Water Quality
Monitoring, predicting, and protecting water supplies and water quality that support natural ecosystems and human health are major concerns of many researchers affiliated with DENIN. As in many coastal areas around the world, Delaware’s surface and groundwater supplies are subject to significant pollution, particularly from nonpoint sources such as runoff from agricultural fields and urban roadways. The legacy of Delaware’s industrial past lingers in numerous brownfields, many located in low-lying coastal
areas, where contaminants remain in the soil. The fate of these contaminants as they increasingly come into contact with saltwater through rising sea levels or water tables, or through inundation by storm surges, is largely unknown and a primary research area for DENIN that has worldwide applicability.
In the background: The health of millions of people in the Bengal Delta is at risk from arsenic-contaminated shallow groundwater. Researchers affiliated with DENIN are working to understand the hydrogeology of the region so that the population can safely tap into deep wells for their drinking water.
Below left: Graduate student Josh LeMonte, visiting scientist Jörg Rinklebe, and DENIN director Don Sparks work with automated biogeochemical microcosms to simulate real-world soil conditions in the lab.
Below middle: Plant scientist Angelia Seyfferth displays the root systems of rice plants taken from a paddy in Cambodia where she studies factors that affect the uptake of arsenic by rice.
Below right: An experimental setup in the lab at DENIN’s partner, the Stroud Water Research Center in Avondale, Pennsylvania, is used to evaluate stream water quality.
Research 5
D
D
N
5
E
E
N
N
I
I
N
5