Retardation of arsenic transport through a Pleistocene aquifer
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Author(s)
van Geen, Alexander
Bostick, Benjamín C.
Thi Kim Trang, Pham
Lan, Vi Mai
Mai, Nguyen-Ngoc
Manh, Phu Dao
Viet, Pham Hung
Radloff, Kathleen
Aziz, Zahid
Mey, Jacob L.
Date Issued
September 2013
Journal
Nature
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
Citation
van Green, Alexander, Benjamim C. Bostick, Pham Thi Kim Trang, Vi Mai Lan et al. "Retardation of arsenic transport through a Pleistocene aquifer." Nature 501, 204–207 (12 September 2013).
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
Groundwater drawn daily from shallow alluvial sands by millions of wells over large areas of south and southeast Asia exposes an estimated population of over a hundred million people to toxic levels of arsenic1. Holocene aquifers are the source of widespread arsenic poisoning across the region2, 3. In contrast, Pleistocene sands deposited in this region more than 12,000 years ago mostly do not host groundwater with high levels of arsenic. Pleistocene aquifers are increasingly used as a safe source of drinking water4 and it is therefore important to understand under what conditions low levels of arsenic can be maintained. Here we reconstruct the initial phase of contamination of a Pleistocene aquifer near Hanoi, Vietnam. We demonstrate that changes in groundwater flow conditions and the redox state of the aquifer sands induced by groundwater pumping caused the lateral intrusion of arsenic contamination more than 120 metres from a Holocene aquifer into a previously uncontaminated Pleistocene aquifer. We also find that arsenic adsorbs onto the aquifer sands and that there is a 16–20-fold retardation in the extent of the contamination relative to the reconstructed lateral movement of groundwater over the same period. Our findings suggest that arsenic contamination of Pleistocene aquifers in south and southeast Asia as a consequence of increasing levels of groundwater pumping may have been delayed by the retardation of arsenic transport.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1038/nature12444
