Landslide monitoring is a mandatory step in landslide risk assessment. It requires collecting data on landslide conditions (e.g., areal extent, landslide kinematics, surface topography, hydrogeometeorological parameters, and failure surfaces) from different time periods and at different scales, from site-specific to local, regional, and national, to assess landslide activity. In this analysis, we collected information on landslide monitoring techniques from 17 members of the Earth Observation and Geohazards Expert Group (from EuroGeoSurveys) deployed between 2005 and 2021.
Geochemical investigation of topsoil from a mixed industrial and residential area in the southern part of the city of Sisak was carried out in order to determine the concentration, spatial distribution, metal-bearing phases and sources of Ba, Cr, Cu, Fe, Mn, Ni, Pb, Ti, V, W and Zn by applying inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) and scanning electron microscopy/energy dispersive spectroscopy (SEM/EDS).
29 inorganic compounds (Al, As, B, Ba, Be, Bi, Ca, Cd, Ce, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, Gd, K, Mg, Mn, Mo, Na, Nd, Ni, Pb, Sb, Se, Sr, Tl, U, V and Zn) were measured in the tap water of 484 representative homes of children aged 6 months to 6 years in metropolitan France in 2008–2009. Parents were asked whether their children consumed tap water. Sampling design and sampling weights were taken into account to estimate element concentrations in tap water supplied to the 3,581,991 homes of 4,923,058 children aged 6 months to 6 years.
In the context of the European Union’s Soil Thematic Strategy, policy makers require easy access to soil data and information of various types and scales to assess the state of soils at European level. To satisfy this need, the European Commission and the European Environment Agency (EEA) decided to establish the European Soil Data Centre (ESDAC), located at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre.
There has been considerable interest in geodiversity and pedodiversity studies over the last approximately 30 years. Pedodiversity is considered part of geodiversity, but in practice they involved different experts and traditions. There are many common aspects that could be shared by all natural diversity studies, however, these common aspects have not been adequately studied and debated.
In 2014, the list of Critical Raw Materials for the European Union included for the first time an energy fossil resource: coking coal. Its presence was due to its high economic importance, being the second raw material in the list immediately after tungsten, although with a low supply risk as Australia and USA were the main exporters of coking coal to the European Union in recent years. However, on the 2017 list, coking coal is considered a borderline case. Although it narrowly misses the economic importance threshold, for the sake of caution, coking coal is kept on the list and thus included in the table. However, it will be phased out from the next list should it fail to meet the criteria in full.
Geochemical atlas of Croatia resulted from the regional geochemical survey based on the low-density (1 sample per 25 km2) soil sampling having covered the entire territory of the state. Basically, the collection of maps showing distribution of a set of elements with particular emphasis of possibly harmful elements (PHE) was focused on elucidation of environmental implications brought about by human impact (ingress of Pb, Zn, Cd and other elements derived from anthropogenic sources) against some zero-level represented by geochemical background.
Beira city and Dondo district in Mozambique were studied with the purpose of evaluating the environmental quality of soil and to relate its quality with land cover and geology. This study revealed, by means of statistical tools, such as principal component analysis and multidimensional scaling, geochemical signatures of geogenic and anthropogenic origin in top- and sub-soil samples. Elements present in detrital minerals, deposited in recent geological formations of sedimentary origin (Ba, Cr, Hf, Ti, Th, U and REE), are related to the erosion products of mafic and orthogneissic formations derived from the upstream reaches of Pungwe River.
Modelling of topsoil geochemical data using discriminant function analysis, along with a set of corresponding geochemical maps, portray a legacy of environmental contamination in the city of Sisak. Based on centred log-ratio (clr) transformed compositional data from topsoil samples collected on Kupa-Odra and Sava River floodplain sediments and loess, underlying the Sisak urban area, and regrouped according to their land use characteristics (urban, industrial and agricultural areas), a few element clusters emerged accounting for discrimination between the defined groups.
Extreme geological events, such as earthquakes, are a significant global concern and sometimes their consequences can be devastating. Geographic information plays a critical role in health protection regarding hazards, and there are a range of initiatives using geographic information to communicate risk as well as to support early warning systems operated by geologists. Nevertheless we consider there to remain shortfalls in translating information on extreme geological events into health protection tools, and suggest that social scientists have an important role to play in aiding the development of a new generation of toolkits aimed at public health practitioners.
Soil plays a central role in food safety as it determines the possible composition of food and feed at the root of the food chain. However, the quality of soil resources as defined by their potential impact on human health by propagation of harmful elements through the food chain has been poorly studied in Europe due to the lack of data of adequate detail and reliability. The European Union’s first harmonized topsoil sampling and coherent analytical procedure produced trace element measurements from approximately 22,000 locations.
Within the framework of the Pan-European project about the geochemistry of bottled mineral waters in Europe launched in 2007 by the European Geological Surveys (EGS) Geochemistry Expert Group fourteen brands of bottled natural waters from Croatia of both mineral and spring types were evaluated for getting more coherent spatial information about the natural variation of element concentration in bottled waters found at the European market. Results of chemical analysis show that not a single one out of fourteen analyzed bottled waters from Croatia exceeds the Croatian water standards sanctioning thereby their suitability for human consumption.
This paper describes a hydrochemical study focusing spas groundwaters occurring at São Paulo and Minas Gerais states, Brazil, that are extensively used for drinking in public places, bottling and bathing purposes, among other. The water samples (75) for this study were taken from springs and pumped tubular wells drilled at different aquifer systems that are inserted in Paraná and Southeastern Shield hydrogeological provinces. The data acquisition for temperature, electrical conductivity (EC), pH, redox potential (Eh), dissolved gases (O2, CO2 and H2S) and alkalinity was in situ performed for avoiding losses and modification due to transportation.
In the past researches conducted on the territory of Serbia, 5 regional geotectonic units have been distinguished with registered occurrences of 230 mineral springs. Recent analyses of the bottled mineral waters quality have not included systematic examinations of micro-components present in these waters. Based on the analyses of the bottled mineral waters (EuroGeoSurveys Geochemistry Expert Group), it has been observed that the water quality is greatly influenced by the chemical composition of igneous intrusions, regardless of the fact that the analyzed waters have been taken from different aquifers (Neogene sediments, limestone, flysch, schist).
There is a critical need to establish a global geochemical observation network to provide data for monitoring the chemical changes of the Earths near-surface environment. The International Centre on Global-scale Geochemistry, under auspices of UNESCO and Government of China, has initiated an International Scientific Cooperation Project called Mapping Chemical Earth. The project focuses on the establishment of Global Geochemical Observatory Network for documenting baselines and changes of nearly all natural chemical elements in the Earths surface and creating a digital Chemical Earth platform allowing anyone to access vast amounts of geochemical data through the Internet.
Urban geochemistry is a unique discipline that is distinguished from general geochemistry by the complex infrastructure and intense human activities associated with concentrated population centers. As stated by Thornton (1991) “This subject is concerned with the complex interactions and relationships between chemical elements and their compounds in the urban environment, the influence of past and present human and industrial activities on these, and the impacts or effects of geochemical parameters in urban areas on plant, animal and human health.” Urban areas present special challenges to geochemists attempting to understand geochemical states and fluxes.
Soil contamination is one of the greatest concerns among the threats to soil resources in Europe and globally. Despite of its importance there was only very course scale (1/5000 km2) data available on soil heavy metal concentrations prior to the LUCAS topsoil survey, which had a sampling density of 200 km2. Based on the results of the LUCAS sampling and auxiliary information detailed and up-to-date maps of heavy metals (As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Hg, Pb, Zn, Sb, Co and Ni) in the topsoil of the European Union were produced. Using the maps of heavy metal concentration in topsoil we made a spatial prediction of areas where local assessment is suggested to monitor and eventually control the potential threat from heavy metals. Most of the examined elements remain under the corresponding threshold values in the majority of the land of the EU.
Arsenic is a ubiquitous metalloid in the biosphere, and its origin can be either geogenic or anthropic. Four oxidation states (−3, 0, +3 and + 5) characterize organic and inorganic As- compounds. Although arsenic is reportedly a toxicant, its harmful effects are closely related to its chemical form: inorganic compounds are most toxic, followed by organic ones and finally by arsine gas. Although drinking water is the primary source of arsenic exposure to humans, the metalloid enters the food chain through its uptake by crops, the extent of which is tightly dependent on its phytoavailability.
Data access within the framework of a scientific program such as GeoFrance 3D is of primary importance — scientists must be able to download, store and retrieve data using only an Internet connection and a browser on their computer. Here we describe the data model developed for this purpose, along with the architecture and classes of the system designed using Java technologies.