Abstract
Abstract : Over the past several years remediation by natural attenuation has become increasingly accepted as a remedial alternative for organic compounds dissolved in groundwater. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) defines natural attenuation as (OSWER, 1996): The term 'Natural Attenuation' refers to naturally-occurring processes in soil and groundwater environments that act without human intervention to reduce the mass, toxicity, mobility, volume, or concentration of contaminants in those media. These in-situ processes include biodegradation, dispersion, dilution, adsorption, volatilization, and chemical or biological stabilization or destruction of contaminants. In practice, natural attenuation also is referred to by several other names, such as intrinsic remediation, intrinsic bioremediation, natural restoration, or passive bioremediation. The goal of any site characterization effort is to understand the fate and transport of the contaminants of concern over time in order to assess any current or potential threat to human health or the environment. Natural attenuation processes, such as biodegradation, can often be dominant factors in the fate and transport of contaminants. Thus, consideration and quantification of natural attenuation is essential to a more thorough understanding of contaminant fate and transport.
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