Management of abandoned and contaminated land - Environmental Deterioration and Contamination: Problems and their Management - page 176

Soil atlases of the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission are unique
compilations:

- Soil Atlas of Europe (2005) (Jones et al ., 2005);

- European Atlas of Soil Biodiversity (2010) (Jones et al ., 2010a);

- Soil Atlas of the Northern Circumpolar Region (Jones et al ., 2010b).

Some other projects and written materials useful in soil management include the
following:

- Derivation methods of soil screening values in Europe (Carlon, 2007);

- Common criteria for risk area identification according to soil threats (Eckelmann

et al ., 2006);

- Environment for Europeans, Green Week 2008—Only One Earth (2008);

- LIFE projects on soil, land use and agriculture (2013);

- SOWAP (2007) LIFE project: Soil and Water Protection (Jones et al ., 2006).

4 BASICTHEORY OF CONTAMINATED LAND MANAGEMENT

K. Gruiz
Building up the basic theory of contaminated land management is the result of a long
developmental and experience gathering pathway from the Superfund Program of US
EPA (Environmental Protection Agency of the USA) through the above mentioned
European projects to the present situation, when environmental professionals have
arrived at a more or less agreed and harmonized management system based on uniform
theories and practices, priorities and methodologies. This does not mean that it cannot
be developed further, rather it should be refined and verified in practice in aid of
sustainable land use. And it does not mean that these theories have been sufficiently
translated into practice: there is a noticeable gap between the two.
Superfund was the environmental program established to address abandoned
hazardous waste sites in USA. The fund was established by the Comprehensive Envi-
ronmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act of 1980, amended in 2008
(CERCLA statute, 2008). This law was enacted in the wake of the discovery of toxic
waste dumps such as Love Canal and Times Beach (see more in Chapter 3).
The superfund program allows EPA to clean up inherited and newly contaminated
sites, gather information on site clean-up case studies, innovative remediation method-
ologies and complete management tool boxes. In 2010, a total of 1,280 sites were listed
on the National Priority List. The data in the Superfund Program are available to the
public through the EPA Superfund Information Systems (2013).
The Netherlands created its pioneering contaminated soil regulation in 1980 with
the requirement of multifunctionality, meaning that all soils should be cleaned up onto
a level, which makes it multifunctional (suitable for any kind of use). It caused undue
and unacceptable costs, so that the land use-specific target quality became a new
approach in the Netherlands' contaminated site strategy in 1997.