Management of abandoned and contaminated land - Environmental Deterioration and Contamination: Problems and their Management - page 187

Figure 7.5 Restriction and remediation possibilities on the source-transport-receptor pathway.
and other environmental compartments, including the rehabilitation of the ecosystem,
thus ensuring a quality suitable for existing land uses. There are some pathways, e.g.,
transport to air and groundwater which can hardly be blocked in practice. Depending
on chemical properties of the contaminant-volatility, water solubility, prone to dusting-
contaminated land typically generates contaminated air and groundwater. Change of
land use and prohibition of certain land uses or accessibilities are restrictions aiming to
change the land users to less sensitive ones (only workers, only adults, no children, etc.)
or the exposure parameters to reduce intake (not for residential use, no kindergarten,
no recreation, only energy plant cultivation, etc.).
Risk reduction by rehabilitation and remediation of a contaminated site means
the conversion of wasteland into a valuable land suitable for habitation or cultivation.
Related terms are reclamation or restoration, the act of restoring the land and soil
to a satisfactory state. The term remediation implies that contaminated or otherwise
deteriorated sites should be remedied, to stop or reverse their damage, to correct
a fault or an error made. The term recultivation is also used sometimes; it means
making/turning bare areas fertile again through bioengineering and refertilization.
If it is planned that the land management activity should change the land use, reha-
bilitation would not reinstate the original state of the site but rather it provides/ensures
good conditions for the new land use.