ABSTRACT
Groundwater pollution could become one of the scourges of the age. Much depends on the spread of toxic and persistent chemicals from agricultural intensification the world over, from salt extrusion in disturbed dryland soils, and from the gentle rain from heaven contaminated with the fugitive emissions of millions of tiny sources, each one of which may be almost impossible to detect and to monitor. The natural repository of all these chemicals is the soil, groundwater and estuaries filling with toxic sediments, of which the most insidious is the contamination of groundwater by pathogens from sewage works discharges, nitrate pollution from excessive or inappropriate fertiliser use, heavy metals from rainfall, oil discharges from illegal dumping, solvent discharges from poorly managed waste disposal sites and rainfall, and sedimentation of rivers and estuaries from which seep all manner of stored pollutants.
