Geochemical Water Monitoring

Dear Colleagues,

Geochemical and isotopic water monitoring as well as statistical and geostatistical data processing are expreriencing an explosive growth in both importance and potentiality. Researchers can offer to the real world the availability of new and ever more refined methodology to investigate the health of our water.

Every anthropogenic activity, including production processes in industrial plants and power plants as well as the disposal of waste materials, which may cause significant environmental impacts on groundwater, can be fingerprinted via appropriate chemical and isotopic characterization. The lack of detailed information about the several potential contamination sources can partially blind our investigator eyes, causing the loss of capacity to trace and quantify contamination events. Moreover, upon release into the environment, the polluting substance is quickly dispersed through transport processes such as circulation of air masses and advection in groundwater and surface waters. In addition, in areas strongly affected by human activities, there are multiple contamination sources, and it is fundamental to assess the provenance of a given polluting substance for the correct application of the “Polluter Pays Principle”.

Taking into account the maximum admissible concentrations of pollutants represents a necessary, preliminary step. However, it is well known that it is not enough to assess contamination sources. Chemical and isotopic data have to be applied, together with geochemical modeling and fingerprinting techniques, to highlight active processes and to establish the provenance of polluting substances.

This Special Issue solicits contributions on geochemical water monitoring studies and statistical and geostatistical data processing, focused on fingerprinting of the source of contaminant, and methodology and techniques to follow the path and the fate of pollution events.

Dr. Brunella Raco
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Water is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Geochemical and isotopic monitoring of different acquifers and surface waters
• Contamination assessment in different anthropogenic site
• Experience in geochemical environmental forensics
• Evaluation of geochemical baseline
• Origin and evolution of pollutants linked to natural and anthropogenic source
• Methodological protocol focus on contaminant fingerprinting