ABSTRACT
Organic matter content of wastewater and its treated effluents is customarily expressed in terms of the biochemical oxygen demand, the chemical oxygen demand, and the total organic carbon. In the toxicological assessment of the water quality, it is essential that toxic organic substances in the water be positively identified and their concentrations determined. Trace organics are deposited in the soil, subjected to attenuation by physical, chemical, and biological reactions in the soil, and translocated into plant tissue before they may enter the human food chain. Through the soil matrix, trace organics introduced by irrigation may become contaminants of groundwater. It is essential that the fate of trace organic substances introduced into the soil through irrigation be determined. In the soil, adsorption is a process that describes the migration of chemical constituents from the aqueous phase to the surface of soil particles.
