Linking Hydrology, Geology, and Engineering toward Sustainable Solutions to Widespread Arsenic Contamination in the Bengal Delta September 15, 2016
Holly Michael
Associate Professor, Departments of Geological Sciences and Civil and Environmental Engineering,
and Unidel Fraser Russell Chair for the Environment, University of Delaware

As populations rise worldwide and climates change, stress on water resources increases, and thousands of people die each day from water-related diseases. Sustainable solutions must consider the complex environment that affects water supply, requiring understanding that spans traditional disciplines and includes both natural and human factors. In Bangladesh and other areas of Southern Asia, widespread contamination of shallow groundwater with naturally-occurring arsenic threatens the health of tens of millions of people who use the water for drinking and irrigating crops. Our research addresses the vulnerability of deep, low-arsenic groundwater and how it can be used as an alternative water source in a sustainable way. We consider the large-scale hydrologic system, geologic structure, and water use patterns to develop water management guidance toward sustainability. We also address the problem of groundwater use in the Mega-City, Dhaka, where intensive pumping increases the vulnerability of water resources to invasion of arsenic and we assesses risks related to geologic uncertainty. The interdisciplinary nature of the arsenic problem requires teams of researchers to work together to address questions that span hydrology, chemistry, biology, geology, sociology, and economics.

Holly Michael is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Geological Sciences and Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Unidel Fraser Russell Chair for the Environment at the University of Delaware. She holds a BS in Civil Engineering from the University of Notre Dame and a PhD in Hydrology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her research interests include coastal hydrogeology, groundwater-surface water interactions, water resource management, and geostatistics. Some of her current projects include investigating groundwater flow into estuaries, modeling groundwater salinization due to climate change, evaluating sustainability of arsenic-safe groundwater in Bangladesh, and application of experimental economics to groundwater resources.