Environmental Pollutants: Detection and Measurement (Environmental Science Research, 13)

The principal emphasis of the Department of Radiation Biology and Biophysics is on biological problems. Techniques for measuring are considered very necessary but the development of them is usual ly left to someone else. Therefore it is a little unusual for the department to sponsor a conference which is devoted mostly to methodology. Environmental Pollution is a very popular topic now, and one notices that there are a number of scientific conferences devoted to the topic. Furthermore, part of every conference is devoted to measurements of pollutants. So the question becomes one of what should be different about our conference. To start with there are two unique features here: The first is the limited attendance which should provide more meaningful discussion; the second is the availability to the world of all the information in book form after the conference. We gave considerable thought to the contents of the conference which would take advantage of the unique features. Therefore, we decided to look to the future and present material here that is not in routine use. The search for pollutants has just begun, and their presence cannot be established without some means of detection. Many substances are not known to be toxic be cause no one has studied them. The necessary information can only be obtained if techniques for detection and measurement are avail able.