Contaminants and Land Environment Sustainability Indicators - Sustainable Practices in Geoenvironmental Engineering - page 314

Impact region or zone

Waste discharge to land
environment

Issues and
points to be
investigated
and/or
determined

Geoenvironment

Some contaminants
(pollutants) of concern
Al, Sb, As, Ba, Be, Cd, Cl,
Cn, Cr, Co, Cu, F, I, Fe, Hg,
Pb, Mg, Mn, Mo, Ni,
Nitrite, Nitrate, P, K, Se,
Ag, Ti, Va, Zn
VOCs, PAHs, SOCs,
NAPLs

Contact with geoenvironment
Surface, subsurface, extent,
depth, liquid, solid, mixtures,
potential transport, types of
receptors, pathways

Sustainability goals
Prior land use status and
potential?
Return to pristine?
Ameliorate or eliminate
threats?
Contain and protect biotic
receptors?

Positive, neutral or negative
impact?

FIGURE 9.5
Simple schematic showing irst sets of determination for assessment of impact of waste discharge to the land
environment.

9.3 Assessment of Interaction Impacts
Figure 9.5 shows many of the pollutants and contaminants found as discharge waste from
activities associated with urbanization and industrial manufacturing and production.
Knowledge of the geoenvironment impact interactions with speciic projects and indus-
trial manufacturing and production processes is required in structuring defensive and
mitigation actions. In the case of contaminants in the land compartment of the geoen-
vironment, this means that knowledge of the transport and fate of contaminants in the
subsoil must be obtained. The aim of the outcome of defensive and mitigation actions is to
provide the best course of action required to meet the objectives for protection and conser-
vation of the particular natural capital component under consideration. Contaminant fate
and transport modeling is a commonly used tool to predict the outcome of these actions.
The basic elements of fate and transport processes and modeling have been discussed in
Chapter 2. We will continue the discussion in this section.

9.3.1 Sustainability Concerns

All previous chapters have shown that the major sets of interactions between the vari-
ous external agents (activities, projects, industries, etc.) that have the potential to severely
impact the land environment are the liquid and solid discharges (spills and other discharge