- Bioaugmentation- Biobarrier Design Concepts and Case Studies- Activated Carbon and Other Support Media Used for Biobarriers- Biologically Enhanced Iron Barriers, and Iron-Reducing Processes.

Over the past 4 billion years, microorganisms have contributed to shaping the earth and making it more habitable for higher forms of life. They are remarkable in their metabolic diversity and their ability to harvest energy from oxidation and reduction reactions. Research on these microbiological processes has led to the newly evolving fields of geomicrobiology and biogeochemistry, linking the geosphere and the biosphere. This volume of the Soil Biology series provides an overview of the biogeochemical processes and the microorganisms involved, with an emphasis on the industrial applications. Topics treated include aspects such as bioremediation of contaminated environments, biomining, biotechnological applications of extremophiles, subsurface petroleum microbiology, enhanced oil recovery using microbes and their products, metal extraction from soil, soil elemental cycling and plant nutrition.

A synthesis of years of interdisciplinary research and practice, the second edition of this bestseller continues to serve as a primary resource for information on the assessment, remediation, and control of contamination on and below the ground surface. Practical Handbook of Soil, Vadose Zone, and Ground-Water Contamination: Assessment, Prev

Within the span of last couple of years, the increasing human interference with v- ious natural ecosystems and higher discharge of pollutants has presented numerous challenges to the society related to preserving the nature for a better tomorrow. The challenges also mount pressure on the scienti?c community to invent technologies that would provide solutions to the problems that are man made and also decrease the negative consequences that we are facing because of our own actions. This edited book attempts to present eight technological innovations that have shown potential to provide answers to a few challenges. Like the previous collection, the described innovations in the current volume also cover a range of areas including water and soil pollution, bio-sensors and energy. However, it is to be realized that no combination of technology can be enough to make a sizeable difference. As I said in my last collection, technological advances have to be integrated with a change in social behavior. The philosophy of sustainable development has to be the principle of future planning and growth. In this collection, I am pleased to include an article on noise pollution. Noise is a pollutant of our own behavior and can only be solved by a behavioral change. The change that is either voluntary or enforced by laws. As an environmental scientist noise is not normally a pollutant that would come in mind as a leading pollutant.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, our nation began to grapple with the legacy of past disposal practices for toxic chemicals. With the passage in 1980 of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), commonly known as Superfund, it became the law of the land to remediate these sites. The U. S. Department of Defense (DoD), the nation’s largest industrial organization, also recognized that it too had a legacy of contaminated sites. Historic operations at Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps facilities, ranges, manufacturing sites, shipyards, and depots had resulted in widespread contamination of soil, groundwater, and sediment. While Superfund began in 1980 to focus on remediation of heavily contaminated sites largely abandoned or neglected by the private sector, the DoD had already initiated its Installation Restoration Program in the mid 1970s. In 1984, the DoD began the Defense Environmental Restoration Program (DERP) for contaminated site assessment and remediation. Two years later, the U. S. Congress codified the DERP and directed the Secretary of Defense to carry out a concurrent program of research, development, and demonstration of innovative remediation technologies. As chronicled in the 1994 National Research Council report, “Ranking Hazardous-Waste Sites for Remedial Action”, our early estimates on the cost and suitability of existing technologies for cleaning up contaminated sites were wildly optimistic. Original estimates, in 1980, projected an average Superfund cleanup cost of a mere $3.