Ecological Risk Assessment of Diffuse and Local Soil Contamination Using Species Sensitivity Distributions - Dealing with Contaminated Sites: From Theory Towards Practical Application - page 682

# per area
0-5
5-10
10-20
20- 40
> 40

Toxic pressure

No Data

PAH Cu As Zn Pb Cd

Fig. 14.18 ( Left ) Spatial distribution of numbers of cases of serious soil contamination concen-
tration (at least one compound exceeds the Intervention Value) per area unit. This map represents
more than 430,000 cases of high soil contamination, with high numbers of sites in the most pop-
ulated areas. ( Right ) Numbers of seriously contaminated sites (Y-axis) with an ecological toxic
pressure value in the ranges of PAF

≤ 25%, 25 < PAF ≤ 50%, 50 < PAF ≤ 75% and PAF > 75%

(Rutgers et al. 2006 )

to very high toxic pressures at most of the sites that contain PAHs, whereas, for
example, the toxic pressures from Cd were in the lower range.
Even more insight into the most relevant contaminants can be obtained when
discriminating among different types of contaminated site cases. For example, when
sites that were transferred in the past to create residential areas (as foundations),
the highest toxic pressure for ecosystems relates to arsenic and to a lesser extent
PAHs and zinc, while for other situations zinc and to a lesser extent PAH are most
important (Table 14.2 ).

14.14.5.4 Management Assessment

Management assessments are made yearly on the whole inventory list of cases, to
focus the remediation operation more and more on the most contaminated sites (i.e.,
with the highest risks given the local soil use), and on the sites where there is a need

Table 14.2 Median estimated toxic pressure values (msPAF in %) for different clusters within the
national inventory list of soils in the Netherlands with serious contamination (Rutgers et al. 2006 )

Cluster Cd Cu Pb Zn As PAH

City, foundation 3 43 68 86 99 88

Dumps 30 52 96 96 53 82

Large sites 2 54 90 90 59 90

Small sites 0 43 78 78 13 88