Arsenic in the Environment: Bridging Science to Practice for Sustainable Development As2021

The Congress and Exhibition Series "Arsenic in the Environment" offers an international, multi- and interdisciplinary discussion platform for research and innovation aimed towards a holistic solution to the challenges posed by the environmental toxin arsenic, with global 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 Biennial Congress and Exhibition "Arsenic in the Environment" was first organized in Mexico City (As2006) followed by As2008 in Valencia (Spain), As2010 in Tainan (Chinese Taiwan), As2012 in Cairns (Australia), As2014 in Buenos Aires (Argentina), As2016 in Stockholm (Sweden) and As2018 in Beijing (P.R. China).

The 8th International Congress As2020 was held June 7-9, 2021 (first time digitally owing to the global COVID-19 pandemic, in Wageningen, The Netherlands) and with a title Arsenic in the Environment - Bridging Science to Practice for Sustainable Development.

The Congress addressed the broader context of arsenic research aligned on the following themes:

Theme 1: Arsenic in Natural Soil and Water Systems

Theme 2: Arsenic in Agriculture and Food Production

Theme 3: Health Impacts of Arsenic

Theme 4: Technologies for Arsenic Removal from Water

Theme 5: Sustainable Mitigation and Management for Sustainable Development

Arsenic in drinking water and food is a major health issue, affecting millions of people in many parts of the world. In recent years serious cases of arsenic exposure through different environmental matrices have been reported from, for example, Argentina, Bangladesh, Chile, China, Taiwan, Turkey, India, Mexico, UK, USA, Pakistan, Vietnam as well as other regions in the world. Arsenic can cause a number of carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic adverse effects on human health and therefore human exposure to arsenic should be avoided. Notably, The Netherlands has been in the forefront of research on arsenic removal technology and developed a cutting edge innovation to remove arsenic to levels below the WHO drinking water guideline to as low as less than 1 μg/L. This has created an enabling environment to discuss on policy issues for defining the new drinking water guideline. The Congress has attracted professionals involved in different segments of interdisciplinary research on arsenic in an open forum, and strengthened relations between academia, research institutions, government and non-governmental agencies, industries, and civil society organizations to share an optimal ambience for exchange of knowledge.

Albert van der Wal (Bert) currently leads the R&D team for drinking water production at Evides Water Company, based in the Netherlands. In this role, Bert is responsible for the R&D and innovation program, with main focus on biological stability, removal of anthropogenic compounds and new treatment concepts for sustainable drinking water production. He is an expert in electrochemical water treatment technologies, membrane filtration and removal of organic compounds in activated carbon filtration.

Bert van der Wal is also a professor at Wageningen University, the Netherlands, supervising PhD and MSc students and advising entrepreneurs for start-up companies. He is the co-founder of Voltea b.v., a spin-off company from Unilever, which was set-up to develop and commercialise capacitive deionization technology for water desalination. With Voltea he won the prestigious Technology Innovation Award at the Global Water Summit in Paris in 2010, as well as the Technology Pioneer Award from the World Economic Forum in 2013. He contributed to ‘Water innovations in the Netherlands’, which was presented by the minister to Dutch parliament in 2014.

Bert works closely with KWR Watercycle Research Institute and the Technology Top Institute for Water Technology Wetsus in the Netherlands.

Bert obtained a PhD in Physical Chemistry and Microbiology from Wageningen University. He published over 50 scientific papers and filed 31 patents.

Arslan Ahmad is Director technology and Innovation at Sibelco material solutions company. He has been 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 7th International Congress on Arsenic in the Environment (As2018). Arslan Ahmad is Guest Editor of CRC Press/Taylor & Francis Book Series "Sustainable Water Developments". He is closely collaborating with KTH-International Groundwater Arsenic Research Group at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology and the International Society of Groundwater for Sustainable Development (ISGSD) on developing cutting edge technology or arsenic removal. Since 2017, he is elected as the Vice -Chair of the IWA Specialist Group Metals and Related Substances in Drinking Water (METRELS).

Branislav Petrusevski is Associate Professor in Water Supply Engineering and mentor of the International Water Supply course at the UNESCO-IHE Delft Institute for Water Education, the largest international graduate water education facility in the world and based in Delft, the Netherlands. He received his PhD degree from IHE / University of Technology, Delft, M.Sc. in Environmental Engineering at IHE-Delft and BSc in Civil Engineering. He has 18 years of advisory, engineering and research experience in drinking and industrial water supply and industrial wastewater treatment in the Netherlands, Eastern Europe, Middle East, Cyprus, Peru. He specializes in conventional drinking water treatment techniques and removal of algae and particles from impounded surface waters and has been involved with a number of projects in the eastern European countries on removal of arsenic and other redox-sensitive elements from the anoxic groundwaters. Prior joining IHE Delft Institute for Water Education he was employed as a senior water treatment consultant and project manager for Stork Engineers & Contractors, Dutch engineering company, and Energoproject the largest consulting and engineering company in former Yugoslavia.

Jan Weijma has more than 15 year experience in wastewater treatment and recycling, both as researcher and as engineer. He has worked in the academic environment at Wageningen University (Ph.D. in 2000) as well as in the business environment (technology supplier). He was project and technology manager for several large pilot projects on innovative wastewater treatment technologies. He holds expertise in new sanitation, sustainable technologies for (waste)water, recovery of resources from residual streams, metal recovery from waste streams, biological sulfur cycle, biocrystallisation. He has broad experience in developing innovative technological concepts into working and viable technologies for water treatment. Besides his position at LeAF, he also keeps a research position (2 days/week) at Wageningen University, sub-department of Environmental Technology.

Dragan Savić joined KWR Water Cycle Research Institute in the Netherlands as the Chief Executive Officer on July 1 2018. Before joining KWR he was Director and co-founder of the Centre for Water Systems in Exeter, an internationally recognised group for excellence in water and environmental science research. Dragan Savić was the first Professor of Hydroinformatics in the UK having held this post at the University of Exeter since 2001. His research interests cover the interdisciplinary field of Hydroinformatics, which transcends traditional boundaries of water/environmental sciences, informatics/computer science (including Artificial Intelligence, data mining and optimisation techniques) and environmental engineering. His recent work has concentrated on the theoretical development and application of Artificial Intelligence methods that have been applied to many fields of environmental science and engineering, including Smart Water Systems. He is elected Fellow of the UK Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) and a member of the European Academy of Sciences (EURASC).

Patrick van der Wens is an experienced Manager on engineering and policy making with a demonstrated history of working in the utilities industry. Skilled in change management, water quality management and water treatment. Has a strong sense for sustainable development and coaching, A strong engineering professional with two Master's Degrees focused in Civil Engineering (1994, TU Delft) and Public Sector management (2012, University of Tilburg/TiasNimbas).

Erwin Beerendonk is team leader of the Water Treatment and Resource Recovery team at KWR Water Research Institute. He has more than 25 years’ experience in research and water treatment, aiming to bridge science to practice. As senior researcher and project manager, he focuses on solving challenges faced by the (inter)national water sector. For example the influence of droughts and climate change, decrease of water quality of (drinking) water sources (e.g. by arsenic), water reuse, resource recovery and finding the technological solutions to tackle the challenges.

Prosun Bhattacharya holds a PhD in Sedimentary Geochemistry from 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. Between 2016 and 2019, he has served as an Adjunct Professor at the School of Civil Engineering & Surveying & International Centre for Applied Climate Science at the University of Southern Queensland, Australia. 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 has coordinated 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 400 international publications in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings, cited more than 14200 times (Google Scholar and Google h-index 57) and i10-index of over 178. 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 Journal Groundwater for Sustainable Development and Associate Editor of Journal of Hydrology published by Elsevier. Since 2011, he has been responsible for Developing Nations Coordination of the IWA Specialist Group Metals and Related Substances in Drinking Water. Since March 2017, he has been elected as the chair of the IWA Specialist Group Metals and Related Substances in Drinking Water. Based on his global engagements in the field of arsenic research he has been honored with the title as the Fellow of the Geological Society of America in April, 2012 and has been conferred with the title of the fellow of the International Water Association (IWA Fellow) in September 2018. He has been recently named as the recipient of the prestigious 2021George Burke Maxey Distinguished Service Award, instituted by the Hydrogeology Division of the Geological Society of America.

Jochen Bundschuh finished his PhD on numerical modeling of heat transport in aquifers from the University of Tübingen in 1990. He is working in geothermics, subsurface and surface hydrology and integrated water resources management, and related disciplines. From 1993 to1999, he served as an expert for the German Agency of Technical Cooperation (GTZ) and as a long-term professor for the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) in Argentine. From2001 to 2008 he worked within the framework of the German governmental cooperation (Integrated Expert Program of CIM; GTZ/BA) as adviser in mission to Costa Rica at the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE) and engaged in evaluation and development of its huge low-enthalpy geothermal resources for power generation. He has been an Affiliate Professor at the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden between 2006 and 2014. . Since 2006, he is serving as the Vice-President of the International Society of Groundwater for Sustainable Development ISGSD. Between 2009 and 2011, he was visiting professor at the Department of Earth Sciences at the National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan. Since 2012, Dr. Bundschuh is a professor in hydrogeology at the University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, Australia working on the wide field of water resources and low/middle enthalpy geothermal resources, water and wastewater treatment and sustainable and renewable energy resources. In November 2012, Prof. Bundschuh was appointed as president of the newly established Australian Chapter of the International Medical Geology Association (IMGA). Dr. Bundschuh is author of the books "Low-Enthalpy Geothermal Resources for Power Generation" (2008) (Taylor & Francis/CRC Press) and "Introduction to the Numerical Modeling of Groundwater and Geothermal Systems: Fundamentals of Mass, Energy and Solute Transport in Poroelastic Rocks". He is editor of 16 books and editor of the book series "Multiphysics Modeling", "Arsenic in the Environment", "Sustainable Energy Developments" and the recently established series "Sustainable Water Developments" (all CRC Press/Taylor & Francis). He has been the co-editor in chief of the Elsevier journal "Groundwater for Sustainable Development" between 2015 and 2021.

Ravi Naidu is the CEO and Managing Director of the Cooperative Research Centre for Contamination Assessment and Remediation of the Environment (CRC CARE), Professor and Global Innovation Chair and Director of the Global Centre for Environmental Remediation at the University of Newcastle, Australia. Prof. Naidu’s work focuses on the remediation of contaminated soil, water and air, and the potential impacts of contaminants upon environmental and human health at local, national and global levels. Prof. Naidu been a global leader in the move to the now widely accepted ‘risk-based’ approach to managing contaminated sites. He has also been a leader in the shift to in situ remediation – cleaning up contamination where it lies, rather than the traditional ‘dig and dump’ approach. Together, these approaches potentially save industry millions, if not billions, of dollars annually and make clean-up far more feasible and effective. Prof. Naidu received his PhD in environmental science from Massey University, New Zealand. He is an elected Fellow of the Soil Science Societies of America (2000) and New Zealand (2004), and the America Society of Agronomy (2006), and was the founding director of the University of South Australia’s Centre for Environmental Risk Assessment and Remediation. In 2013 was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is Chair of the International Committee on Bioavailability and Risk Assessment, former Chair of the International Union of Soil Sciences Commission for Soil Degradation Control, Remediation and Reclamation (2002-10), and former President of the International Society on Trace Element Biogeochemistry (2005-07). He has authored or co-authored over 420 journal articles and 80 technical publications as well as seven patents, and co-edited 11 books and over 66 book chapters in the field of soil and environmental sciences. He has also supervised over 30 PhD completions. In 2013, Professor Naidu received an honorary Doctorate of Science from Tamil Nadu Agricultural University for "outstanding contributions to agriculture", and won the Richard Pratt – Banksia CEO Award at the Banksia Sustainability Awards, recognizing his contributions towards environmental sustainability.