Geothermal Environments and Human Health: Exposure Pathways, Risks, and Mitigation Strategies

Abstract

Geothermal energy is increasingly deployed worldwide as a low-carbon, dispatchable renewable resource, yet the natural and engineered processes underlying geothermal energy extraction create a distinctive set of environmental exposure pathways—atmospheric, aqueous, and geomechanical—that can affect the health of nearby communities. Geothermal fluids naturally carry hydrogen sulfide, carbon dioxide, arsenic, and other geogenic trace elements to the surface, while reservoir pressure changes from fluid withdrawal and reinjection can alter ground stability and, in some settings, induce seismicity. This article synthesizes the scientific literature on geothermal environments and human health, organizing the evidence around three principal exposure pathways—atmospheric hydrogen sulfide, arsenic and trace element contamination of water resources, and geomechanical risk—and the corresponding epidemiological, hydrogeochemical, and risk-assessment evidence associated with each. It draws on subsurface reactive transport modeling relevant to long-term geothermal reservoir chemistry, machine learning-enhanced geomechanical characterization relevant to induced seismicity and ground stability, and heterogeneous reservoir management principles from analogous subsurface energy operations, and further considers how AI-driven public health surveillance, predictive analytics, and economic impact frameworks developed for national healthcare systems could inform more integrated environmental health mitigation strategies for geothermal-adjacent communities. The article concludes by identifying persistent challenges in exposure quantification, cross-pathway risk integration, and mitigation strategy evaluation, and proposes a research agenda for advancing environmental health protection in geothermal energy development.