 | Arsenic Research and Global Sustainability: Proceedings of the Sixth International Congress on Arsenic in the Environment (As2016), June 19-23, 2016, Stockholm, Sweden Subjects: Engineering & Technology; Environment and Sustainability; Food Science & Technology; Physical Sciences; Environmental Change & Pollution; Civil Environmental and Geotechnical Engineering; Food Chemistry; Chemistry; Waste & Recycling; Water Engineering; Food Microbiology; Environmental Chemistry; The Congress "Arsenic in the Environment" offers an international, multi- and interdisciplinary discussion platform for research and innovation aimed towards a holistic solution to the problem posed by the environmental toxin arsenic, with considerable societal impact. The congress has focused on cutting edge and breakthrough research in physical, chemical, toxicological, medical, agricultural and other specific issues on arsenic across a broader environmental realm. The Congress "Arsenic in the Environment" was first organized in Mexico City (As2006) followed by As2008 in Valencia, Spain, As2010 in Tainan, Taiwan, As2012 in Cairns, Australia and As2014 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The Congress addressed the broader context of arsenic research along the following themes: Long term exposure to low-to-medium levels of arsenic via contaminated food and drinking water can have a serious impact on human health and globally, more than 100 million people are at risk. Since the end of the 20th century, arsenic in drinking water (mainly groundwater) has emerged as a global health concern. In the past decade, the presence of arsenic in plant foods - especially rice - has gained increasing attention. In the Nordic countries in particular, the use of water-soluble inorganic arsenic chemicals (e.g. chromated copper arsenate, CCA) as wood preservatives and the mining of sulfidic ores have been flagged as health concern. The issue has been accentuated by discoveries of naturally occurring arsenic in groundwater, primarily in the private wells, in parts of the Fennoscandian Shield and in sedimentary formations, with potentially detrimental effects on public health. Sweden has been at the forefront of research on the health effects of arsenic, technological solutions for arsenic removal, and sustainable mitigation measures for developing countries. Hosting this Congress in Sweden was also relevant because historically Sweden has been one of the leading producer of As2O3 and its emission from the smelting industries in northern Sweden and has successfully implemented actions to reduce the industrial emissions of arsenic as well as minimizing the use of materials and products containing arsenic in since 1977. The Congress has gathered professionals involved in different segments of interdisciplinary research in an open forum, and strengthened relations between academia, industry, research laboratories, government agencies and the private sector to share an optimal atmosphere for exchange of knowledge, discoveries and discussions about the problem of arsenic in the environment and catalyze the knowledge generation and innovations at a policy context to achieve the goals for post 2015 Sustainable Development. Prosun Bhattacharya (1962) holds a PhD in Sedimentary Geochemistry from the University of Delhi, India (1990). He is a Professor of Groundwater Chemistry and Coordinator of the KTH-International Groundwater Arsenic Research Group, at the Department of Sustainable Development, Environmental Science and Engineering at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden. He is engaged with research on groundwater contamination in sedimentary aquifers in different parts of the world, especially focusing on geogenic contaminants - arsenic and fluoride. He has collaborative research engagements with universities and research organizations in India, Bangladesh, China, Australia, Argentina, Ghana, Costa Rica, Bolivia, Tanzania, Turkey and USA. He is coordinating the prestigious Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency supported action research and implementation project "Sustainable Arsenic Mitigation-SASMIT" Community driven initiatives to target arsenic safe groundwater as sustainable mitigation strategy in Bangladesh (2007-2016). He has authored/co-authored over 300 international publications in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings, cited more than 5600 times (Google Scholar and Google h-index 35) and i10-index 87. He has organized several international workshops on natural arsenic in groundwater and sustainable mitigation and edited 9 books on diverse aspects of natural arsenic in groundwater and groundwater for sustainable development until 2014. He is the Editor in Chief of the newly incepted Journal Groundwater for Sustainable Development published by Elsevier and the Frontiers in Environmental Sciences: Specialty Section on Groundwater Resources and Management and Associate Editor of the two reputed journals Journal of Hydrology and Environment International. Based on his global engagements in the field of arsenic research he has been honored as a Fellow of the Geological Society of America in April, 2012. Since 2011, he is also responsible for Developing Nations Coordination of the IWA Specialist Group Metals and Related Substances in Drinking Water. Marie Vahter (1950) holds a PhD from Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden, and is since 1987 Professor at the Institute of Environmental Medicine at Karolinska Institutet . Her research concerns mainly toxic metals and human health in a wide sense; from exposure and related health effects, to the underlying toxic mechanisms and various susceptibility factors. Currently the research focuses on the health effects of early-life exposure and involves several mother-child cohorts. Professor Vahter is a highly productive (more than 300 publications and 11000 citations) and internationally recognized researcher of associations between exposure and the impact of metals on human health on a global level. She has participated in several risk assessments of toxic metals. Among other things, she has contributed to a reduction of limit values for arsenic in drinking water for the majority of countries in the world. Jerker Jarsjö (1969) has a PhD in Water Resources Engineering from the Royal Institute of Technology -KTH, Stockholm (1998), and is Associate Professor of Hydrology and Hydrogeology and Deputy Head of the Department of Physical Geography, Stockholm University (SU). He leads the Hydrosphere, Cryosphere and Climate research area at the Bolin Centre for Climate Research at SU, and is principal investigator of international research projects on impacts of metal and metalloid spreading in groundwater and surface water systems under the influence of climate change and other anthropogenic pressures, for instance financed by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), the Geological Survey of Sweden (SGU), and the EU. He has 55 publications indexed in Web of Science and will in 2016 also guest edit a special issue of Environmental Earth Sciences on Sustainable Water Resources Management in Central Asia. Jurate Kumpiene (1974) is a Professor in Waste Science and Technology at Luleå University of Technology, Sweden. She has been developing remediation techniques for contaminated soils, waste and groundwater, with a particular focus on trace element, including arsenic, mobilization /stabilisation in soil. Remediation methods for arsenic contaminated soil developed under the scientific leadership of Prof. Kumpiene are being applied by the waste management industry in Sweden and some of them have been patented. She has over 40 publications indexed in Web of Science and is an Associate Editor of the journal Waste Management . Prof. Kumpiene is an active participant and the Board Member (2010-2014) of the national stakeholder network "Clean Soil", a member of the Scientific Advisory Panel of International Waste Working Group and the Executive Board Member of the International Society of Biogeochemists. Arslan Ahmad (1986) is a leading Research Scientist at KWR Water Cycle Research Institute of the Netherlands, with particular focus on the removal of metals and related substances from drinking water. Part of his work is also focused on resource recovery from water, wastewater and residuals generated from the treatment processes. More recently, Arslan Ahmad has been engaged in the development of innovative solutions for managing low arsenic and chromate concentrations in public drinking water supply in the Netherlands. Arslan Ahmad is the Exhibition Chair and Member of the Scientific Committee of 6th International Congress on Arsenic in the Environment (As2016). Arslan Ahmad is Guest Editor of CRC Press/Taylor & Francis Book Series "Sustainable Water Developments". Amongst his other international associations, KTH-International Groundwater Arsenic Research Group (KTH-GARG) and the International Society of Groundwater for Sustainable Development (ISGSD) can be highlighted here. Charlotte Sparrenbom (1971) is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) at the Department of Geology at Lund University. Her research interest mainly focuses on occurrence, fate and behavior of organic and inorganic contaminants in groundwater and sediments within the groundwater system, as well as changes in groundwater quality over time and investigation methods of groundwater conditions. The projects relate to groundwater contamination related to: i) occurrence and behavior of pesticides in groundwater (within the Pegasus project), ii) arsenic contamination of drinking water resources (within the Amonas project), iii) age determination and mixing of groundwater and its relationship to contaminants (within a Region Skåne/SGU-financed project) and iv) Trust-project (Transparent Underground Structures) concerning "Geoelectrical Imaging for Site Investigation of Urban Underground Infrastructure". Gunnar Jacks (1937) graduated as mining engineer from KTH Royal Institute of Technology in 1962. After working with rock stability issues for a couple of years he spent a year with a humanitarian NGO in Turkey where he realized the importance of water for societies and human life. He took a B Sc. degree in Medicine from the Karolinska Institute in 1971. After returning to Sweden and KTH, he studied hydrology and received the PhD in hydrochemistry in 1973. He assisted his professor in a short term groundwater investigation in Tamil Nadu in India, which led to a three year project work within Central Ground Water Board in Coimbatore in India and later on to an engagement in a project in Kerala. Excess fluoride in groundwater was a major interest in his and his Indian colleagues work. While he has throughout years been a faculty member at KTH he has been on missions to Botswana, Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos. Acid mine drainage has from the mid 1970-s been part of his interest. He was the head of the Groundwater Chemistry Group of the former Division of Land and Water Resources, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of the KTH and took active part in the research regarding acid deposition during the 1980-s and 1990-s. The quantitative study of weathering rates became an important issue and he was part of a group that used strontium isotopes for assessments. He has been involved with a number of international research projects since 1990s which include investigation on high fluoride groundwater in Rajasthan (1994-1997). He has been actively involved in research on arsenic in soil and groundwater systems since 1991. During 1996, the his research group at KTH was contacted by Dr. Debashis Chatterjee from Kalyani University in Kolkata, India regarding the arsenic problems in West Bengal. That was the start of a still ongoing work in India, Bangladesh and several other parts of the world with a principal focus on research on the mechanisms of arsenic mobilisation in groundwater environments. Gunnar Jacks has also in recent years been working on zinc deficiency in soils in the Niger inland delta in Mali. He is a guest Professor at Åbo Akademi, the Swedish speaking university in Finland. In 2006, he was elected as the President of the International Society of Groundwater for Sustainable Development (ISGSD). Marinus Eric Donselaar (1952) has a Doctor of Science Degree from the Delft University of Technology and currently is Associate Professor in Sedimentology at the same University. He has been instrumental in establishing the research in geological reservoir characterization at TU Delft. The focus of his current research and publications are in the field of the modeling of fluvial reservoirs, with applications in the fields of flow modelling of arsenic pollution, geothermal energy production, CO2 storage, and oil and gas production. He has co-supervised 16 PhD theses, and authored/co-authored 120 international publications in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings, cited more than 200 times (Google Scholar and Google h-index 8 and i10-index 7). Ri |
