Talk:Groundwater pollution

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Redirect from groundwater protection

I've just created a redirect from groundwater protection (the article didn't exist yet) to here. The two are very much linked. But one could argue thtat the groundwater protection aspect would warrant a separate page or to become more visible in the "groundwater pollution" article. EvMsmile (talk) 10:58, 16 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent! The groundwater protection aspect can be improved within this article for now, but I would suggest to create its own article in the future.Migumadri (talk) 18:03, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

So the strategy would be to build up chapter 4 ("prevention") for now but in future split that off into a separate article, and leave only a short bit here and point to the other article. And from "groundwater protection" there would be a very short bit on causes and refer to the article on groundwater pollution? I guess we also have an article on water pollution - you could also compare it with that article's structure. EMsmile (talk) 22:51, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

19-20 March Proposed Changes

I propose to include new items and rearrange the first 2 sections of the article. What I suggest with this is reordering the pollutant types based on the health impacts and the magnitude of population exposed to those pollutants. In my opinion, arsenic is the top worldwide groundwater pollutant; millions are affected by both arsenic and fluoride.

I also propose to mention specific toxic organic pollutants typically found in groundwater including VOCs such as chlorinated solvents and benzene, but also other SVOCs such as highly soluble PAHs and pesticides.

The second section (Causes) is associated with the proposed changes in the first section. The rest of the article can also be edited accordingly.

This is what I propose:

1.Pollutant types

1.1 Arsenic and fluoride
1.2 Pathogens
1.3 Nitrate
1.4 Organic compounds
1.5 Metals
1.6 Other

2.Causes

2.1 Natural (Geogenic)
2.2 On-site sanitation systems
2.3 Sewage
2.4 Fertilizers and pesticides
2.5 Commercial and industrial leaks
2.6 Hydraulic fracturing
2.7 Landfill leachate
2.8 Other

I hope everybody is happy with this idea. I will start editing tomorrow.Migumadri (talk) 20:51, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

sounds like a good plan to me! anyone else watching this article and having an opinion? EMsmile (talk) 22:51, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

A section is needed for another potential source/cause: Deep well injection of industrial & municipal waste. These are called "Class I wells" in the US Underground Injection Control program. See EPA's UIC site at https://www.epa.gov/uic . This is a permit-regulated activity, separate from oil & gas disposal, fracking, etc. Deep well disposal is not limited to the U.S., however. Moreau1 (talk) 15:08, 18 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds great to me! Do you want to help develop the deep well disposal section? Migumadri (talk) 15:20, 18 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Just wondering why you want to keep arsenic and flouride together in one heading and then add sub-headings below that, rather than making them both into Level 3 headings of their own? EMsmile (talk) 00:11, 19 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I already finished my major contributions to the article for now. I may add more later. Please feel free to revise. In the meanwhile, I'm drafting a version of in Spanish.Migumadri (talk) 03:57, 21 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Putting in too much content from WHO 2006 document?

@User:Migumadri, I am wondering if it is a bad thing to quote too much content from the same publication: The one World Health Organization (WHO) (2006). "Protecting Groundwater for Health - Managing the Quality of Drinking-water Sources" is referenced about 20 times. I don't know if there is a guidance on this in Wikipdia somewhere but it might be a sign that we are going into more detail than necessary for the layperson and eventually just "recreating" what is in that document? What is your view on that? By the way, it is a pity that WHO documents are not open access publications. If it was, then you would have been allowed to copy and paste. But as it's not, you have to be careful and use paraphrasing but not direct copying (as I noticed after reading the note on your talk page). - Are there any other publications that could also be cited for this content, not just the WHO one from 2006? Perhaps just to bring in another perspective? EMsmile (talk) 10:18, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

In general sources should only be called when the fact on the page is actually proven by the source. I have not yet been able to go back to check this article as the references still need work, however I strongly suspect that at least some of the calling of the WHO article are spurious. We also need to consider the age of that article - it isn't exactly new and so there is highly likely to be other, better, sources. I have also found several instances of dubious references - one was in a very low quality journal (we should be sticking to high quality, preferably review articles in journals as far as possible) and another which I have flagged because it is simply a public consultation document. Of course that doesn't mean the contents are wrong, but the purpose that the source was created for suggests that it may not be entirely accurate.

I'd also just say that referencing on wikipedia is one of the hardest things to get right - it is often counter-intuitive even to those who are accustomed to academic work. But as per WP:RS, we really need to be asking ourselves when we're using a reference how reliable it is or is likely to be, because the source is often more important than the contents. It isn't foolproof, but generally speaking newer sources are better than older sources (ideally 5 years old or less), reviews are better than primary sources, published works are better than websites.

Again, don't take this as a terrible criticism of your work, @Migumadri:, there are plenty of pages that are worse than this. The point is to try to improve the pages, and I just so happen to be working on references at the moment. JMWt (talk) 10:40, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Also worth seeing the work that User:Citation_bot/use has just done to the references. If they're correctly formatted then wikipedia's bots can improve them, whereas if they're not then they can't.. JMWt (talk) 11:04, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Well, this is my first Wikipedia edit ever. To start, I decided to improve the article by including more information and precise references regarding contamination of groundwater specifically coming from internationally recognized institutions, in particular UN organizations. Groundwater pollution is not a very popular topic and general information out there is quite scattered. WHO (2006) is a unique and extensive (697 pages) publication on groundwater quality and health consisting of 5 sections: (http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/publications/protecting_groundwater/en/). There are not more recent publications of this kind and the content remains very valid, in particular for developing countries facing this issue. I tried to use information from all the sections. Section 4: "Protecting Groundwater for Health - Managing the Quality of Drinking-water Sources" provides good information on groundwater protection, which is something I wanted to include to improve the article. I already did my best to paraphrase a few short sentences after your revision in order to avoid any kind of copyright violations. I may still need to work a bit to improve the reference format. I appreciate all comments. I’m asking my colleagues on the topic to please help me revise the page.Migumadri (talk) 13:14, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

OK, but you've referenced that one work more than 30 times. I don't think that's appropriate. JMWt (talk) 13:26, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

How about more images?

It would be nice to have more photos or schematics for this article. The ones that are in there were added by myself. Are there any that are either already in Wikimedia Commons or which we have that we could add? If we don't have them under the right licence yet (CC-BY SA), we could ask the organization who owns the images or schematics to make them available under that licence. EMsmile (talk) 10:20, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I would appreciate to get help from other experienced editors on on that. I'm not a "wikipedian" myself and I'm afraid on spending more time trying to figure out how things work on Wikipedia than actually improving the content of the page.Migumadri (talk) 13:14, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

OK, no worries. I can help with getting images into the article if someone provides or finds the images. Do you have any available by any chance? In order to check what is already available in Wikimedia Commons, you (or others) can just go here and then put suitable terms in the search field: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page. When I put "groundwater pollution" into the search field, I get to these (many of them were added by me): https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Groundwater_pollution Are there any that you would like to see added? Just click on one and then click on "Use this file" which gives you the code to copy into the source editor. I can help if you find it difficult, just tell me which ones to add. EMsmile (talk) 11:49, 31 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There's not much I could find on Wikimedia Commons. Maybe these two?: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Manure_spreading_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1241415.jpg, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Benzene_Transport_to_Groundwater_from_Oil_Spill.pdf. Migumadri (talk) 23:14, 9 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, they seem perfect. You know how to use them now? Just click on the button "use this file on a wiki" above the photo which gives you the code to insert (use the one for a thumbnail), e.g. it could look like this:

[[File:Manure spreading - geograph.org.uk - 1241415.jpg|thumb|Manure spreading - geograph.org.uk - 1241415]] or then like this (on the right).

Update: these two images have been included in the article. EMsmile (talk) 04:36, 14 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The article needs one or two landfill pictures. Historically, unlined landfills have been notorious sources of groundwater contamination, especially industrial landfills. There are plenty of landfill photos on Commons, but the trick is to find photos where you can see some evidence of current or past contamination activity. (A lot of photos show capped landfills, where you don't know if there had been contamination, unless the description text explains that.) Here are two possibilities, but you may be able to find better photos. Just search for "landfill". Additionally, for US sites, you can search on "Superfund" for industrial and military sites. Moreau1 (talk) 14:57, 14 May 2021 (UTC) [reply]

A Superfund site in the US
A UK site, capped, with monitoring wells

Yes, please. I agree with you and would say, please go ahead; make sure the caption explains well what the image is trying to point out. EMsmile (talk) 15:10, 14 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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