Environ Geochem Health
DOI 10.1007/s10653-007-9102-4
PREFACE
Preface
Kyoung-Woong Kim Æ Ravi Naidu
Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2007
It is our great honor to edit this special issue of
Environmental Geochemistry and Health (EGAH)
celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the Korean
Society of Soil & Groundwater Environment (KOS-
SGE).
KOSSGE organized a special international sym-
posium from 27 to 29 October 2005, which featured
seven plenary lectures by distinguished guest speak-
ers including Professor Hilary Inyang, as well as
many valuable presentations about environmental
issues related to soil and groundwater. It was also
meaningful to review the past decade of KOSSGE
activity to set future directions for the coming
10 years.
KOSSGE was created in May 2000 out of a
merger between the Korean Society of Groundwater
Environment and the Korea Soil Environment Soci-
ety, which had similar objectives. Following this
integration, the scientific journals of KOSSGE were
K.-W. Kim (&)
Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, 1 Oryong-
dong, Buk-gu, Gwangju 500-712, South Korea
e-mail: kwkim@gist.ac.kr
R. Naidu
University of South Australia, GPO Box 2471, Adelaide,
South Australia 5007, Australia
e-mail: Ravi.Naidu@unisa.edu.au
recognized as among the nation’s highest quality
academic publications in December 2003 by the
Ministry of Education in Korea through Korea
Research Foundation. This led to a commendation
for KOSSGE from the President of Korea on the 9th
World Environment Day in June 2004.
The followings were the main themes of the
special symposium:
(1) Site characterization and risk assessment
(2) Global sustainable development
(3) Site remediation and waste contaminant man-
agement
(4) Groundwater resources and environment
More than 100 oral and poster presentations were
made by highly respected professionals and scholars
from around the world, including the USA, Europe,
Australia, China and Southeast Asia as well as Korea.
These presentations covered various fields of envi-
ronmental geochemistry, and we have selected only
11 renowned lectures including analytical methods
for As speciations, removal of heavy metals using
bioleaching, soil washing & sorption and risk
assessment studies for the publication in this special
issue of EGAH.
This issue contains scientifically outstanding
work that will provide valuable background for
study of the emerging groundwater and soil envi-
ronment issues in the global context. As editors of
this issue, we wish to express sincere appreciation
to former President of the KOSSGE Dr. Min-Hyo
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 Environ Geochem Health

Lee, current President Dr. Ig-Hwan Sung and the

editor of EGAH, Prof. M.H. Wong, for according us
the honor of editing this special issue.
Thank you very much.
31 January 2007
Professors Kyoung-Woong Kim and Ravi Naidu
(Guest Editors)

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