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Distribution of Arsenic and Iron in Hyporheic Zone Sediments Along the Hooghly River

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Advances in River Corridor Research and Applications (RCRM 2023)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering ((LNCE,volume 470))

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Abstract

Arsenic (As) contamination within the shallow aquifers of the Bengal basin continues to pose a serious health risk to millions of people who rely on the groundwater for drinking purposes. Elevated dissolved As concentrations in the aquifers are attributed to the reductive dissolution of As-bearing Fe-oxides. Within the hyporheic zone (HZ), interactions between oxygen-rich river water and reducing groundwater causes the precipitation of Fe-oxides, which act as a sink of As. Surficial fine sediment has been proposed to limit this reaction. Once formed, the As-bearing Fe-oxides may dissolve under reducing conditions to further contaminate the adjacent aquifer. In this preliminary study, sediments from silt-capped and sandy riverbanks along the Hooghly River (West Bengal, India) were investigated to understand the factors controlling the mobility of As within the HZ. Bulk elemental concentrations were measured by X-Ray Fluorescence and the relative proportion of Fe(III) was estimated by diffuse reflectance spectroscopy. The silt-capped riverbanks had As and Fe concentrations of 3.6 mg/kg and 19.0 g/kg, respectively, which were more closely associated with clay minerals as shown by the ΔR which is a proxy for Fe(III) (ΔR at 520 nm = 0.2). The sands had As and Fe concentrations of 3.6 mg/kg and 12.5 g/kg, respectively, with higher proportions of Fe present as Fe-oxides (ΔR at 520 nm = 0.37). The results indicate that the distribution of As and Fe differs between the sandy and silt-capped riverbanks, indicating that the hydrological and chemical reactions impacting As mobility varies between the riverbanks.

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Acknowledgements

TV gratefully acknowledges financial support for this research by the Fulbright Student Research Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State and the United States-India Educational Foundation (USIEF). Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not represent the official views of the Fulbright Program, the Government of the United States, or the USIEF. We also thank Ms. Isita Nandi, Mr. Dushyant Sharma, Mr. Naveen at Advanced Materials Research Center (AMRC) and Mr. Sanjeev of Environmental Engineering Lab at IIT Mandi for their technical and analytical support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX, 78249, USA

    Thomas S. Varner & Saugata Datta

  2. Department of Earth Sciences, Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology, Shibpur, Howrah, West Bengal, 711103, India

    Saptarshi Saha & Ananya Mukhopadhyay

  3. Department of Geology and Geophysics, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, 77843, USA

    Kyungwon Kwak & Peter S. K. Knappett

  4. Department of Oceanography, Noakhali Science and Technology University, Noakhali, 3814, Bangladesh

    Mesbah Uddin Bhuiyan

  5. School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Mandi, Himachal Pradesh, 175001, India

    Harshad V. Kulkarni

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  1. Thomas S. Varner
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Correspondence to Thomas S. Varner , Harshad V. Kulkarni or Saugata Datta .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Jammu, Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir, India

    Vinay Chembolu

  2. Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Guwahati, Assam, India

    Subashisa Dutta

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Varner, T.S. et al. (2024). Distribution of Arsenic and Iron in Hyporheic Zone Sediments Along the Hooghly River. In: Chembolu, V., Dutta, S. (eds) Advances in River Corridor Research and Applications. RCRM 2023. Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering, vol 470. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-1227-4_16

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-1227-4_16

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