Groundwater Contamination by Hazardous Wastes

In the global race of development, a huge amount of wastes having different characteristics and potential for environmental pollution are generated from various activities such as manufacturing, mining, processing, treatments, agriculture, etc. Considering the pollution threats to all three components of the environment (air, water and soil), it is highly essential to assess the levels of pollution associated with these wastes so that suitable remedial measures can be adopted. When untreated hazardous wastes are disposed on the ground or in the landfills, there is always a possibility of groundwater contamination due to the transport of leachate generated from the disposed wastes. In order to predict the groundwater pollution levels at different locations of the aquifers and at different times, several models suited to the characteristics of the concerned hazardous wastes and aquifers have been widely reported in literature. This paper presents a comprehensive literature review on groundwater contamination by hazardous wastes and its different aspects, including the types of hazardous contaminants, aquifers, contaminant transport mechanisms, contaminant transport modeling, software available for modeling contaminant transport in aquifers, groundwater sustainability and a case study on groundwater quality prediction.