Management of abandoned and contaminated land - Environmental Deterioration and Contamination: Problems and their Management - page 168

initiated with the general objective of developing strategies for the management and
treatment of contaminated sites, and for land recycling with regard to “sustainable
resource protection for contaminated land and groundwater''. Today, the Common
Forum (2013) is recognized as representing the European regulatory and policy-making
community, and it contributes to the European Union (EU) Soil Protection Policy.
In 1996, the Common Forum initiated the EU-funded project Concerted Action for
Risk Assessment for Contaminated Sites in Europe (CARACAS, 1996), in order to
improve existing scientific knowledge with regard to risk assessment for contaminated
land from a governmental perspective. At the same time, a complementary project
called NICOLE (1996-1999) approached the problem from the industrial perspective:
a Network for Industrially Contaminated Land in Europe (NICOLE, 2013).
Currently, NICOLE (2013) is a leading forum on contaminated land manage-
ment in Europe which promotes cooperation between industry, academia and service
providers in the development and application of sustainable technologies in order to
manage contaminated sites more efficiently and cost effectively.
The way until today was paved by several European research and development
projects, such as the offspring of CARACAS, the project Contaminated Land Reha-
bilitation Network for Environmental Technologies (CLARINET, 1998-2001) that
developed technical recommendations between 1998 and 2001 for sound decision-
making concerning the rehabilitation of contaminated sites in Europe, and developed
a network for the exchange of information on available methods, technologies and
policy approaches.
Starting in 2003, the EUGRIS (2003-2005) project was initiated to be the Euro-
pean web portal for groundwater and contaminated land information. In September
2013, EUGRIS (2013) is a comprehensive and overarching information and innova-
tion resource, collaborating with related projects, networks and organizations. Today,
its database contains 4026 resources, 3973 registered users, 402 organizations, 59
funding programs, 377 projects, 500 glossary terms, 463 current news items and 14
events.
In the Environmental Technologies Action Plan (ETAP, 2004), published in 2004,
the importance of innovation for growth, competitiveness and employment is stressed.
In order to deliver the ETAP, and to support innovation in the market, the EU, as
the main player in European development, has launched PROMOTE Environmental
Technology Verification (PROMOTE ETV, 2013) networks of testing centers. In order
to approach the slogan “verified once—accepted everywhere,'' the International Work-
ing Group on ETV (IWG-ETV, 2013) was founded to work on the harmonization of
the different international ETV systems from Canada, USA, European Union, Japan,
Korea and the Philippines. The European Advance ETV (2013) was established by
the Seventh Framework Program (2007-2013) of the European Commission for sup-
porting research and development. In December 2011 the DG Environment (2013) of
the EC developed and launched the Eco-Innovation Action Plan (EcoAP, 2011). This
expanded the focus of ETAP from green technologies to all aspects of eco-innovation
(EcoAP, 2013). Currently, the IWG-ETV is developing a proposal for a new ISO-
ETV Standard with an accreditation framework. The ISO-ETV Standard will define
and describe all phases of the ETV process, while the accreditation framework will
give guidance on the accreditation of organizations involved in the ETV process (i.e.,
Verification Organizations).