Sustainable Geoenvironmental Engineering Practice - Sustainable Practices in Geoenvironmental Engineering - page 483

of the methane production. As a backup, connection was made to the municipal energy
system. This also was used for discharge of excess energy. Rainwater was collected in an
underground cistern from buildings for use in toilets, showers, washing solar panels, and
for watering gardens.
Iniltration of the water was allowed only where the soil was low in contamination.
Excavation of the contaminated soil was not performed since this ills landills and trans-
fers the problem to another place. The soil was instead placed on clay liners or membranes
to prevent leaching of the contaminants to the groundwater. Herb gardens are grown on
top of the contaminated land. Gravel and sand ilters are placed above the liners to collect
the precipitation. The entire project cost 110 million euros and was shared between the
community and private investors.
13.5.2.1 Sustainability Indicators: Observations and Comments
As with Section 13.4.1, there are several indicators that can be examined to evaluate whether
sustainability or the path toward the goals of sustainability has been taken.
• Land use : Increased land-use capability has been achieved with the remediation-
rehabilitation scheme. As with the land use case in Section 13.4.1, the land-use
indicators chosen are in speciic reference to the initial condition prior to remedia-
tion and rehabilitation and not before mining.
• Energy sources : The multisource energy input, from solar to methane gas capture
and reuse, coupled with more eficient climate control in the buildings show good
attention to energy conservation. This agrees with the requirement for reduction
in depletion rate of nonrenewable energy resources as a goal toward conservation
for sustainability.
• Water use : As with the conservation strategy for energy, utilization, and reuse of
water show good accord with water sustainability indicators.
• Remediation of contaminated land : The concern for not dumping contaminated
soil into another landill as a reason for placing the contaminated soil on secure
membranes and left on-site is a responsible attitude. One assumes that the appro-
priate requirements for (a) monitoring of the contaminated soil facility, (b) pre-
scribing indicators for safety-recovery status of the contaminated soil facility,
on the assumption that the contaminated soil will be remediated through intrin-
sic remediation processes, and (c) development of appropriate risk-management
procedures.
13.5.3 Agriculture Sustainability Study
De la Rosa et al. (2003) have described soil quality decision support tools for the protec-
tion of agricultural zones, particularly in the Mediterranean region. Soil quality indicators
are not suficient for land management as soil, biological components, climate, water, and
land use must all be considered. MicroLEIS is an agroecological decision support system
available at http://www.evenor-tech.com/microleis/microlei/microlei.aspx. Databases, sta-
tistics, expert systems, neural networks, Web and GIS, and other technologies are inte-
grated in the scheme (Figure 13.7). Information on the impact of soil use such as tillage
on soil properties, soil quality and crop production is still needed. The concept of soil
quality according to the Soil Quality Institute (U.S. Department of Agriculture [USDA],