Scientific and engineering improvement of environmental risk management - Environmental Deterioration and Contamination: Problems and their Management - page 422

efficient site assessment, monitoring, data interpretation, decision supporting tools,
and risk reduction and remediation technologies.
The CARACAS (1996-1998) project recognized as early as in 1998 that “the
emerging disciplines of environmental risk assessment and management are vital
in helping us tackle the contaminated land problem. Without these tools, and the
decision-making framework in which they can be used, the costs of regenerating for-
mer industrial sites will continue to impose a severe burden on industry and the public
purse.'' It is true that our management tools are still not efficient enough to rehabil-
itate and re-use brownfields, and these activities are still delayed in many countries
all over Europe and the world. Dereliction of land has been continued, the number of
potentially contaminated sites is increasing which impairs quality of life and stigmatizes
affected communities. The lack of environmentally and economically efficient manage-
ment tools, land rehabilitation and remediation technologies has increased the pressure
to use greenfields for the purposes of industry, commerce and transport. The percep-
tion of communities is negative because of fear about health risks and environmental
damage, as well as reduction in property values.
All this means that contaminated site management tools must be further developed.
It is worthwhile asking end users about their needs, bottlenecks and barriers which
may hinder the efficiency increase of these methods and technologies.
Most of the specific objectives of the CARACAS project with respect to innovative
tools have not been fulfilled:

- Robust and rapid low-cost techniques for the investigation of (potentially)

contaminated sites;

- Methods that yield information at spatial scales relevant for exposure assessment;

- Characterization by biosensors and bioassays;

- The interaction and general fate of contaminant mixtures;

- Determining bioavailability of contaminants in soil and groundwater, time depen-

dence of bioavailability; cost-effective procedures for estimating bioavailable
fractions in the environment;

- Studying the interaction between organisms (soil fauna, bacteria, plants) and their

chemical environment;

- Characterizing human health risk by the validation of human exposure pathways

and availability of contaminants within the human body;
◦

Availability of contaminants in the soil as compared to the availability in the
animal experiments underlying most toxicological reference values;

◦ Ecological impact of a contaminated site, ecological recovery at the site;

◦ Changes in community structure caused by pollution-induced tolerance versus

classical ecotoxicological end points;

◦ Biomagnification and adverse effects on food chains;

- Specifying ecological soil quality requirements related to human land use;

- Developing risk communication strategies for contaminated land;

◦ Processes of natural attenuation;

◦ Low-energy approaches and cost-effective remedial technologies;

◦ Monitoring of remediation.