Emerging Contaminants in Terrestrial and Aquatic Environments: Occurrence, Health Risks, and Mitigation provides the latest information on the synthesis of the occurrence, behavior, human health risks and mitigation of emerging contaminants in developing countries. First highlighting sources, industrial applications, key drivers and regulatory frameworks, the book then goes on to discuss the nature of emerging contaminants, including organic (e.g., pharmaceuticals), inorganic (e.g., rare earth elements) and biological agents (e.g., antimicrobial resistance). It then presents the dissemination, environmental behavior, and fate in terrestrial and aquatic systems as well as the human and ecological exposure pathways, health risks, and more.
Offering a transdisciplinary approach that brings together perspectives and contributions from experts in environmental sciences, hydrology, environmental engineering, ecotoxicology, chemistry, material sciences, and legal and policy aspects, the book provides an approachable and flexible resource for researchers and upper-level students with diverse academic backgrounds.
Section A - Introduction to emerging contaminants 1. Emerging contaminants: A handful of conceptual and organizing frameworks 2. Emerging contaminants in the terrestrial-aquatic-atmosphere continuum: A global perspective Section B - Emerging contaminants in terrestrial systems 3. High-technology rare earth elements in the soil system: Occurrence, behaviour, and fate 4. (Micro)plastics in the soil system: Occurrence, behaviour, fate, and future directions Section C - Emerging contaminants in aquatic systems 4. Occurrence and behaviour of emerging organic contaminants in aquatic systems 5. Anthropogenic rare earth elements in aquatic environments: Occurrence, behaviour, and fate 6. Microplastics in aquatic systems: Research focal areas, understudied matrices, and future research needs 7. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria and antibiotic resistance genes in aquatic systems: Occurrence, behaviour, and fate Section D - Emerging contaminants in atmospheric systems 8. Air-borne emerging contaminants: An under-studied reservoir and a potential health risk? 9. Occurrence, behaviour, and fate of airborne microplastics Section E - Ecological health risks 10. Ecological health risks of hightechnology rare earth elements 11. Ecological health risks of antibiotic resistance: A perspective on the evidence, challenges, and research needs 12. Ecological health risks of emerging organic contaminants 13. Occurrence and ecological health risks of microplastics Section F - Human health risks 14. Rare earth elements: Human exposure, risk factors, and health risks 15. Occurrence, human exposure pathways, and health risks of microplastics 16. The environmental resistome: Human exposure, health risks, and research needs Section G - Risk assessment and mitigation 17. Assessment and mitigation of pollution and health risks of emerging contaminants: A call for an integrated approach 18. Emerging contaminants: Approaches for policy and regulatory responses in low-income countries 19. Remediation technologies for contaminated soil systems 20. Bio- and chemical surfactants for remediation of emerging organic contaminants Section H - The research agenda 21. Ten (10) key research questions on emerging contaminants and novel entities, and their health risks 22. Emerging contaminants: Epilogue, next-frontier novel entities, and a look ahead
Dr. Willis Gwenzi is a Professor of Biosystems and Environmental Engineering at the University of Zimbabwe. He researches on environmental remediation, environmental hydrology, water/wastewater treatment, emerging contaminants, antibiotic resistance, medical geology, environmental epidemiology, and novel (bio)materials. He has published over 70 peer-reviewed articles. His seminal papers on biochar-based water treatment systems, and high-technology rare earth elements as emerging contaminants have been rated as Highly Cited and Hot papers in 2019 by Web of Science. He has supervised several postgraduate students in bio-environmental system engineering. He is regular manuscript reviewer for top international journals. He has also acted as an external reviewer for grant proposals for UK’s NERC, Canada’s MITACS, Chile’s FONDECYT, and the Austrian Science Foundation. Willis holds the following qualifications: (1) PhD (Biosystems and Environmental Engineering, University of Western Australia), (2) M.Sc. (Water Resources Engineering and Management), (3) B. Sc. Honours (Soil Science), and (4) Postgraduate Certificate (Applied Groundwater Modelling).
