Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
become an important vehicle for soil and sediment protection and further integration
of environmental management. The abatement of large-scale diffuse contamination
problems will for long be the task of public authorities and international coordi-
nation is necessary due to the trans-boundary nature of the environmental problem
and its economic repercussions. There is a need for a more proactive planning for
the future uses of soil and water resources. Sound management of soil and water
resources calls for harmonisation of spatial planning with the environment, so that
land uses can be optimised with respect to soil quality and the hydrological and
ecological situation.
In 1972 the Council of Europe (European Soil Charter
1972
) already stressed
the importance of spatial harmonization of land uses and soil functions. More
recently, the UN Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (
2005
) emphasized this again
by stating that a spatially diverse “Adapting Mosaic” socio-economic development
scenario is best for improvement of Ecosystem Services. In this scenario, harmoni-
sation of socio-economic development with the environment should take place at the
regional watershed-scale. This in turn requires that local institutions and local-level
political decision-making are strengthened. Local management strategies involving
Ecological Services should become more common. The trend to move away from
detailed national command and control policies towards more local decision-making
based on local soil or land- management plans is indeed observed in countries with
a longer tradition in contaminated sites policy making.
23.3 Three Generations of National Contaminated Sites
Management Policies
Within the broader framework of soil protection policies, contaminated sites man-
agement has a special position. It addresses contamination due to past polluting
activities, which is still present in soil and groundwater. There is no equivalent in
policies for other environmental compartments like water and air, in which contam-
ination disappears due to dilution within a relatively short timeframe. Therefore,
different from the soil, no historical contamination is found in these compartments.
Without special remedial actions soil contamination is very persistent, due to the
fact that soil is a non-mixing compartment. Current policies in the more experi-
enced countries (e.g., in the EU and in the USA and Canada) stimulate solutions
for contaminated site problems that are linked to other socio-economic activities (or
problem solutions) at the local and regional scale. This means less direct influence
of national regulations on these solutions as long as some basic requirements like
acceptable risks, groundwater protection, and a few others, are met. Robert Fowler
(
2007
) noted common transitions in law and policy for contaminated sites in a num-
ber of industrialized countries. In Europe, for example, three generations in policy
making can be observed. They will be described below. Some further remarks on
the relation between the type of policy needed and the socio-economic context of
contaminated site problems will be given in Section
23.8
.
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