Stressors and Soil Contamination - Sustainable Practices in Geoenvironmental Engineering - page 40

There are many ways in which impacts to the geoenvironment can be categorized or
classiied. A useful and popular method is to categorize the geoenvironmental impacts
in relation to natural or man-made causes leading to events that are determined to be
responsible for the impact, as shown in Figure 2.3. Described within the two major catego-
ries shown in the igure are some typical causes for events leading to geoenvironmental
impacts. Floods and landslides have been singled out as typical examples of both natural
and man-made causes for events resulting in geoenvironmental impacts. For example,
loods can arise naturally because of hurricanes or tsunamis generated by earthquakes, for
example, shown by the massive loods caused in late summer of 2005 in the gulf region of
Central and North America and in the U.S. Eastern seaboard in late 2012. Floods can also
occur naturally because the natural waterways (rivers, brooks, and streams) do not have
the capability to carry the excessive water load produced by an undue excessive rainfall
occurring over a very short period. It is also possible for loods to occur because of man-
made waterway constrictions and shoreline alterations that impair previously capable per-
formance of the waterways.
Figure 2.3 shows that the anthropogenic events or stressor sources have been divided
into two groups. The primary group refers to those anthropogenic sources of stressors
acting on the physical landscape of the geoenvironment. The stressors generated are the
result of various kinds of anthropogenic activities in support of physical projects such as
excavations and mining, construction of infrastructure and buildings, resource recov-
ery, drilling, tunneling, and waste landills. The immediate evident geoenvironmental

Anthropogenic

Natural

Earthquake
Tornado
Hurricane
Drought
Tsunami

Primary Operation

Floods
Landslides

Pulp and
paper
Oil refinery
Electronic
Steel making
Metal smelting
Refining
Agro industry

Construction
Excavation
Forestry
Agriculture
Tunneling
Resource recovery
Landfills

Events and
activities

Impacts on geoenvironment

FIGURE 2.3
Categories of some typical stressor sources. Note that loods and landslides can be both natural and man-made
causes for events resulting in geoenvironmental impacts.