An emerging market for groundwater remediation in China: Policies, statistics, and future outlook

Deyi Hou, Guanghe Li, Paul Nathanail

PDF(128 KB)
PDF(128 KB)
Front. Environ. Sci. Eng. ›› 2018, Vol. 12 ›› Issue (1) : 16. DOI: 10.1007/s11783-018-1027-x
VIEWS & COMMENTS

An emerging market for groundwater remediation in China: Policies, statistics, and future outlook

Author information +
History +

Abstract

There is a rapidly emerging and potentially huge market for the remediation of contaminated groundwater in China. The Chinese government published a Water Action Plan in April 2015, a Soil Action Plan in May 2016, and a draft Soil Pollution Prevention and Control Law in June 2017. All of these new policies and regulations put pressures on local governments and contaminated site owners, obliging them to conduct site investigation and to cleanup contaminated groundwater. The Chinese population in northern regions heavily depend on groundwater, with nearly 70% of water supply coming from aquifer sources in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. However, poor groundwater quality due to natural geochemical background and anthropogeic pollution is a serious concern, with poor or very poor quality water observed in nearly 80% of groundwater monitoring wells in 17 northern provinces. Shallow groundwater in many areas has been contaminated by toxic pollutants such as heavy metals and chlorinated organic compounds. There is an urgent need to better understand the situation and to conduct groundwater remediation at contaminated sites. The Chinese government is investing heavily in the research and development for groundwater remediation, which is expected to greatly add to the quality and quantity of groundwater remediation projects in the near future.

Keywords

Groundwater pollution / Contaminated land / Groundwater remediation / Emerging market

Cite this article

Download citation ▾
Deyi Hou, Guanghe Li, Paul Nathanail. An emerging market for groundwater remediation in China: Policies, statistics, and future outlook. Front. Environ. Sci. Eng., 2018, 12(1): 16 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11783-018-1027-x

References

[1]
Ministry of Water Resource of China. China's Water Resource Bulletin 2014. Beijing: Ministry of Water Resource of China, 2015 (in Chinese)
[2]
MEP, 2016 China's Environmental Conditions Report. 2017
[3]
People's Daily. “Soil Ten” propose to curb deteriorating soil pollution by 2020 (2016). 2016 (in Chinese)
[4]
HouD, Li F. Complexities Surrounding China’s Soil Action Plan.Land Degradation & Development, 2017, 28(7): 2315–2320
CrossRef Google scholar
[5]
CSER. China's Soil Remediation Technology and Market Development Research Report 2016–2020. Beijing: CSER, 2016 (in Chinese)
[6]
USEPA. Superfund Remedy Report 15th Edition EPA-542-R-17–001. Washington DC.: USEPA, 2017
[7]
QiS, Hou D, LuoJ. Optimization of groundwater sampling approach under various hydrogeological conditions using a numerical simulation model.Journal of Hydrology (Amsterdam), 2017, 552(Supplement C): 505–515
CrossRef Google scholar
[8]
LiuC, Ball W P. Back diffusion of chlorinated solvent contaminants from a natural aquitard to a remediated aquifer under well-controlled field conditions: predictions and measurements.Ground Water, 2002, 40(2): 175–184
CrossRef Pubmed Google scholar
[9]
ChapmanS W, Parker B L. Plume persistence due to aquitard back diffusion following dense nonaqueous phase liquid source removal or isolation.Water Resources Research, 2005, 41(12) 
CrossRef Google scholar
[10]
HouD, Al-Tabbaa A. Sustainability: A new imperative in contaminated land remediation.Environmental Science & Policy, 2014, 39: 25–34
CrossRef Google scholar

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Water Pollution Control and Treatment Science and Technology Major Project (No. 2018ZX07109-003), the Thousand Talents Program of the Chinese government and Tsinghua University.

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

2018 Higher Education Press and Springer–Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature
AI Summary AI Mindmap
PDF(128 KB)

Accesses

Citations

Detail

Sections
Recommended

/