ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT: Minerotrophic peatlands are natural sinks for arsenic (As) in groundwaters: they remove As from input waters as they accumulate As in peat. In Gola di Lago (GdL), Canton Ticino, Switzerland, As concentrations in peat are highly elevated (ca. 150x) compared to “background” values. Stream waters entering this peatland contain up to 400g/L As, but the waters leaving the peatland contain less than 2g/L. The rates and mechanisms of this process have not yet been studied, but offer great promise for the low-cost treatment and remediation of As-bearing waters by natural wetlands. The main goal is to understand how As is removed from the incoming fluid by the peat. We present here a panorama of our research, methodology, previous results and future work.
