Publ. no. 243, (1997) ISBN 1-901502-20-1, 392 + xvi pages, price £50.00
The 41 papers published in this proceedings volume draw together recent studies on the contamination of the world’s freshwater resources. The papers were selected for the international symposium on Freshwater Contamination (Symposium S4) which was jointly convened by the International Commission on Water Quality and the International Commission on Groundwater during the 5th IAHS Scientific Assembly held in Rabat, Morocco, April–May 1997. About 40% of the papers are from developing countries and from arid and semiarid zones. The papers are grouped into eight sections. The first highlights freshwater contamination at world, regional and catchment scales and includes a keynote paper on the recent GEMS-GLORI compendium of global fluxes. Papers which consider contaminants transported in sediment-associated form are grouped in a second section, while pollution and water quality degradation is the theme of the third section and includes studies of contamination by heavy metals, radionuclides and organisms, and as a result of urban and agricultural activities. The fourth section focuses on nutrients in surface waters, while the fifth addresses subsurface contamination and includes studies of problems arising from pollution caused by fertilizers, salinization and saltwater intrusion as well as more general investigations of groundwater quality at countrywide, regional and local scales. Papers concerned with the contamination of lakes and reservoirs, modelling of water pollution and managing water quality are grouped together in the sixth, seventh and eighth sections, respectively.
Bruce Webb
Preface, v-vi