Environmental Impacts of Chemicals for Snow and Ice Control: State of the Knowledge

As chemicals are widely used for snow and ice control of highway and airfield pavements or aircrafts, recent years have seen increased concerns over their potentially detrimental effects on the surrounding environment. The abrasives used for winter operations on pavements are also a cause of environmental concerns. After some background information, this paper presents a review of the environmental impacts of chemicals used for snow and ice control, including those on: surface, ground, and drinking waters; soil; flora; and fauna. The paper provides a state-of-the-art survey of published work (with a focus on those in the last two decades) and examines mainly the impacts of abrasives, chlorides, acetates and formates, urea, glycols, and agro-based deicers. Finally, we conclude with a brief discussion of public perception of such impacts and best management practices (BMPs) to mitigate them.