Labile Organic Carbon in Recharge and its Impact on Groundwater Arsenic Concentrations in Bangladesh

Researchers have puzzled over the origin of dissolved arsenic in the aquifers of the Ganges Delta since widespread arsenic poisoning from groundwater was publicized two decades ago. Previous work has concluded that biological oxidation of organic carbon drives geochemical transformations that mobilize arsenic from sediments; however, the source of the organic carbon that fuels these processes remains controversial. A combined hydrologic and biogeochemical analysis of a typical site in Bangladesh, where constructed ponds and groundwater-irrigated rice fields are the main sources of recharge, shows that only recharge through pond sediments provides the biologically degradable organic carbon that can drive arsenic mobilization. Numerical groundwater simulations as well as chemical and isotopic indicators suggest that contaminated groundwater originates from excavated ponds and that water originating from rice fields is low in arsenic. In fact, rice fields act as an arsenic sink. Irrigation moves arsenic-rich groundwater from the aquifers and deposits it on the rice fields. Most of the deposited arsenic does not return to the aquifers; it is sorbed by the field’s surface soil and bunds, and is swept away in the monsoon floods. The findings indicate that patterns of arsenic contamination in the shallow aquifer are due to recharge-source variation and complex three-dimensional flow.