Groundwater quality

"Groundwater moves through rocks and subsurface soil, it has a lot of opportunity to dissolve substances as it moves. For that reason, groundwater will often have more dissolved substances than surface water will.

Even though the ground is an excellent mechanism for filtering out particulate matter, such as leaves, soil, and bugs, dissolved chemicals and gases can still occur in large enough concentrations in groundwater to cause problems. Underground water can get contaminated from industrial, domestic, and agricultural chemicals from the surface. This includes chemicals such as pesticides and herbicides that many homeowners apply to their lawns" (USGS, n.d.)

Sources

USGS, n.d., Groundwater Quality. https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/ground… [last-accessed, 23 February 2022].

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Photo of Claudia Ruz Vargas

Claudia Ruz Vargas

Researcher International Groundwater Resources Assessment Centre

Claudia Ruz Vargas is a researcher at the International Groundwater Resources Assessment Centre (IGRAC), in Delft, the Netherlands. Through her work at IGRAC, she became a steward for the Essential Climate Variable (ECV) Groundwater at the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS), a programme co-sponsored by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (IOC-UNESCO), UN Environment, and the International Science Council (ISC).