Giger, Walter

Sulzberger, Barbara

English

CHIMIA

857CHI MIA 5/ (1997) Nr. 12 (DcleIllbcr)Chemistry at EAWAGA Key Player in EnvironmentalResearchEDITORIAL The Swiss Federal Institute for Environmental Science and Technology,formerly Swiss Federal Institute for Water Resources and Water PollutionControl (EAWAG), was founded in 1936. Since then environmental prob-lems challenging our society in general and environmental chemists inparticular have become increasingly complex. At first, EA W AG was,according to its original name, an institute for water resources and waterpollution control. Water pollution has evolved from mainly local contami-nations by household and industrial wastes to increasing pollution bysynthetic organic chemicals and by heavy metals with regional impact.Eventually, human activities began to interfere with hydro-biogeochemicalcycles on a global scale. Environmental chemistry has evolved in responseto these changing environmental problems i) by the application of inorganicand organic chemical principles to aquatic systems, ii) by applying analyticalchemistry to environmental systems, iii) by combining chemical expertisewith knowledge of environmental and engineering systems, and iv) bystudying the interactions between various environmental compartments(water, soil, biota, and air). These developments in environmental chemistrystarted under the directorship of Prof. Werner Stumm (1970-1992), duringwhich EA W AG was transformed into an institute for environmental scienceand technology.In the early 1970s, environmental chemistry was thought of as mainlyanalytical chemistry. At that time, a very prominent ETH professor foranalytical chemistry made the critical comment that environmental chem-ists were rather 'flower picking' than doing real science. Later, he was,however, strongly impressed by the results of analytical environmentalchemists who succeeded in determining trace pollutants in many parts of theenvironment. Since then a large group ofEA WAG researchers and graduatestudents has set out to contribute to broadening the scope of environmentalchemistry. Today, environmental chemistry is a well-established and recog-nized discipline. In 1995, the Nobel prize for chemistry was awarded toenvironmental chemists (Crutzen, Molina, and Rowland).Since the Rio summit and since the beginning of Prof. AlexanderZehnder's EA WAG directorship in 1992, the general public, politicians, andscientists have recognized that the development of the present humancivilization must not take place at the expense of future generations. Thismeans above all a sustainable use of our resources, in particular of water,since water will be one of the limiting factors for nourishing of the world'sgrowing population. Environmental chemistry including chemical eco-toxicology will also playa key role in this new type of sustainability research,858C'HIMIA5/ (1997)Nr.12(1)e/emhcr)which by its nature must be transdisciplinary. We strongly believe that thisresearch has to be based on sound basic science integrating state-of-the-arttheories and methods of each of the participating disciplines. This representsa continuing challenge also for the researchers at EA WAG.This special CHIMIA issue 'Chemistry at EA WAG' wants to documentboth the broad scope as well as the scientific depth of environmentalchemical research and development using examples taken from projectsundertaken at EA WAG. The first chapter puts environmental chemistry intoa larger perspective and explains major objectives and concepts. Thefollowing articles present scientific approaches and case studies, includinginvestigations in the laboratory with well-defined systems, field studies, andthe connections between these approaches by means of mathematic model-mg.Prof. Dr. Walter Giger Dr. Barbara SulzbergerSwiss Federal Institute for Environmental Science and Technology (EAWAG)CH-8600 Dlibendorf

A Key Player in Environmental Research: Editorial

https://www.chimia.ch/chimia/article/download/1997_857/2241

A Key Player in Environmental Research: Editorial

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