Abstract

This is the seventeenth annual review published in JAAS of the application of atomic spectroscopy to the chemical analysis of environmental samples. The review follows on directly from last year's (J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2001, 16, 194–235), although this year it incorporates a number of changes in structure. The most obvious and perhaps the most important change is the removal of some of the tabulated material. It was recognised by the review group that some of the tables were becoming less comprehensive and that this form of information was better and more easily obtained using electronic searches. We therefore report the most important developments in environmental analysis during the review period, and as such largely tend to focus on improvements to existing techniques to provide more reliable and robust analytical methods. Comments on these changes and possible improvements for future reviews are welcomed by the review coordinator.