The Blacksmith Institute TAB recently analyzed data for the 35 most polluted places in the world.  A list of the Top 10 most polluted places was developed based on a scoring system.  The resulting document has served to raise awareness and funds to address these areas where life in a town with serious pollution is like living with a death sentence.

Remediation is accomplished through a cooperative effort of multiple stakeholders.  Across the developing world, pollution kills thousands of people indiscriminately, shortens lives, damages children’s development and growth, and creates a background of chronic illnesses that makes strong economic development nearly impossible.

One purpose of this paper is to educate the ground-water community of the severity of ground-water contamination outside of the industrialized world.  A second purpose is to demonstrate how simplified remediation techniques can have a major impact on the health of an affected population.  Multiple-year studies, detailed assessments and pilot tests are typically cost-prohibitive and, more importantly, delay the implementation of a program that may not be perfect, but fairly quickly and inexpensively saves people’s lives.

The authors, TAB members, will present an overview of ground-water conditions and the affected populations of several of the 35 most polluted places in the world.  Several locations addressed by Blacksmith Institute will be described with an emphasis on the scope of the problem and implemented solutions.  The authors wish to convey the reality that seemingly insurmountable levels of pollution in a complex geo-political setting can be successfully addressed.