Groundwater Monitoring & Remediation has issued a call for papers for a special issue focusing on per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in the subsurface and groundwater.
The class of chemicals known as PFAS contains thousands of compounds of which some have been reported to pose notable health risks including cancer, impairment of the immune system, increased cholesterol and obesity, developmental effects in children, and decreased fertility.
The resulting U.S. regulatory limits on certain PFAS in water place upper limits on the order of 10 parts per trillion. Unfortunately, these compounds are found throughout our industrialized society and simple avoidance is practically impossible. As a result, PFAS have been detected globally from urban to remote areas and a recent science article (Tokranov et al. Science, v. 386, 748–755, 2024) found that as many as 95 million people in the United States may depend on drinking water supplies with detectable PFAS.
The PFAS subclass of chemicals persist for indefinite periods of time in the subsurface. This has earned them the moniker “forever chemicals.” As pointed out by Horst et al. (GWMR, v. 42, no. 1, 2023), although PFAS have been studied for their environmental effects for more than two decades, their complex behaviors and recalcitrance mean the methods for characterization and remediation of groundwater sites they pollute remain in their infancy.
In this special issue of Groundwater Monitoring and Remediation, articles are invited that deal with all aspects of PFAS in groundwater and the vadose zone.
Topics of interest include but are not limited to the following:
- Characterization of PFAS-contaminated sites, including sensor technologies
- PFAS in background groundwater
- Advances in PFAS remediation including sorption, flushing, biodegradation, in situ chemical treatments, with emphasis on groundwater
- State-of-the-art case studies illustrating the scope of the problem
- PFAS transformations in situ
- Groundwater-surface water studies involving PFAS
- Advances in PFAS transport modeling
- PFAS in the vadose zone, or more generally at the air-water interface
- Point of use responses to PFAS contamination for individual and municipal water supply wells.
The guest editors for this special issue are Andrea Hanson, Ph.D. of Colorado State University and Mitch Olson, Ph.D. of Colorado State University.
GWMR is targeting a publication date for this issue in the summer of 2026. Please send a brief synopsis of your proposed manuscript by July 30, 2025, to jfdgwmr@ku.edu. Drafts for review are due by October 31, 2025. All manuscript submissions will be subject to the normal GWMR peer review process.