The poison accumulates in the groundwater, where it can get into the human body.
Scientists drew attention to the problem of pollution of the Earth with arsenic, making the world’s first map of the groundwater poisoned. This was studied existing work, which was recorded almost 60 thousand points of measurements of arsenic concentrations around the world, then computer modeling of groundwater flow allowed to identify the most dangerous to human health are areas of the earth.
The authors of the project were specialist of the UNESCO centre for the study of arsenic contamination of water at the Australian University of southern Queensland Michael Berg and ecologist of the Federal Institute of hydrology and technology, Switzerland Joel Podgorski. They are in their study took into account not only the movement of groundwater, and other environmental, natural and geographical aspects, which has allowed to establish that the problem of groundwater contamination by arsenic is relevant to all continents of the planet.
As follows from the results of the work published in the journal Science, chronic arsenic poisoning through groundwater threatens from 94 to 220 million people all over the Earth. The difference in the number of potential victims of arsenic depends on the regulations in a particular country consider arsenic safe. With 90% of the threatened people living in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. In addition, poor environmental conditions recorded in the North of China and Mongolia.
Despite the fact that in Europe, the US and Russia, the problem of groundwater contamination by arsenic is not acute, the researchers believe that developed countries should pay attention to the situation, to help developing countries create more favorable conditions for people living.
