Environmental Forensics (Issues in Environmental Science and Technology)

'Environmental forensics' is a combination of analytical and environmental chemistry, which is useful in the court room context. It therefore involves field analytical studies and both data interpretation and modelling connected with the attribution of pollution events to their causes. 

Recent decades have seen a burgeoning of legislation designed to protect the environment and, as the costs of environmental damage and clean-up are considerable, not only are there prosecutions by regulatory agencies, but the courts are also used as a means of adjudication of civil damage claims relating to environmental causes or environmental degradation. As a result is the increasing number of prosecutions of companies who have breached regulations for environmental protection and in civil claims relating to harm caused by excessive pollutant releases to the environment. Such cases can become extremely protracted as expert witnesses provide their sometimes conflicting interpretations of environmental measurement data and their meaning. It is in this context that environmental forensics is developing as a specialism, leading to greater formalisation of investigative methods which should lead to more definitive findings and less scope for experts to disagree.