**Preface to "Groundwater Quality and Public Health"**

Groundwater is a primary source of water for nearly half of the world's population. Its quality has become as important as its quantity, as serious groundwater pollution has been identified in many regions and countries of the world. The contaminants in groundwater generally have two sources: one is geogenic origin and the other is human activities. The contaminants in groundwater can seriously affect human health, inducing a number of waterborne diseases. This book attempts to provide a platform for researchers, policy makers, and engineers to share their latest thoughts and findings on groundwater quality and public health, as well as novel methods dealing with groundwater pollution. The chapters published in this book include the latest research results by world-renowned researchers, whose findings can benefit researchers, engineers, policy makers, and government officials in future groundwater quality research and policy making. This book focuses on understanding the relationship between groundwater quality and public health, and the current state of knowledge on the links between geological/geochemical processes and human health across the world. The factors that accelerate or decelerate geological/geochemical processes, thus affecting human health, are also considered.

For their help in completing this book, we acknowledge the voluntary reviewers for their useful and critical comments that helped the contributing authors further improve the quality of their manuscripts. The authors whose manuscripts were accepted for publication in this book and those whose manuscripts were unfortunately rejected are also acknowledged for showing their interest in this book. Your participation in this topic makes this book unique and the world a better place.

> **Jianhua Wu, Peiyue Li, and Saurabh Shukla** *Editors*
