Groundwater vulnerability or groundwater pollution risk?

Stefania Stevenazzi (a)
(a) Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra "A. Desio", Università degli Studi di Milano, Via L. Mangiagalli 34, 20133, Milan, Italy. E-mail: stefania.stevenazzi@unimi.it

This short note presents the complexity behind the definition of groundwater vulnerability and the vulnerability assessment methods. Although intrinsic and specific vulnerability are unanimously accepted concepts, and risk assessments are widely performed to protect groundwater from contamination, the development of new techniques to estimate groundwater vulnerability raised questions on whether a vulnerability or a risk is indeed assessed.

aquifer, pollution risk, vulnerability