LIBERATION - Development of a decision support system for sustainable management of contaminated land by linking bioavailability,
Abstract
The current risk assessment procedure for contaminated land, based on total concentrations, is generally restrictive and can only crudely estimate the risk for ground water pollution. It has long been recognised by industry and regulators that it will be technically and financially unfeasible to clean up the sites to pristine levels suitable for most sensitive land and ground water uses, as the costs run up in billions of Euro. The project LIBERATION provides a decision support system for sustainable management of contaminated land based on integrated biological and chemical tools to decide whether pollutants from a contaminated site or landfill are available for ground water contamination or pose a risk for soil and freshwater organisms. A better understanding of the retention and ageing mechanisms and prediction of the contaminant availability should be developed. Thereby decision making in management of contaminated sites should be easier, by utilisation of appropriate remediation techniques a cost effective remediation should be possible without endangering the sustainable management. Objectives: 1. To study the geo-chemical mechanisms in soil underlying bioavailability/mobility and to identify key soil parameters controlling bioavailability, mobility, ecotoxicity and dispersion to ground water. 2. To test the usefulness and ecological relevance of a number of fast, cheap and reliable chemical and biological assessment tools measuring bioavailability by correlating them to ecotoxicity and genotoxicity studies with soil and water organisms. 3. To validate the observations from the laboratory in real world situations by monitoring ecological effects and ground water pollution in field plots. 4. To select various chemical and biological tools and integrate then into a decision support system (DSS) enabling more realistic and confident procedures for ecological risk assessment and ground water protection to be undertaken 5. To undertake and provide socio-economic analysis of the application of the developed DSS, and to include aspects of risk communication and risk perception in the higher tiers of a DSS scheme. 6. To actively involve policy-makers, site owners, end-users and other problem holders in the process to ensure (sichern) the highest possible applicability (Eignung, Anwendbarkeit) and dissemination (Verbreitung) of the decision support system.
bioavailability soil ecotoxicity organic pollution
Publikationen
Project staff
Andreas Paul Loibner
Ao.Univ.Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr.nat.techn. Andreas Paul Loibner
andreas.loibner@boku.ac.at
Tel: +43 1 47654-97470
Project Leader
01.01.2002 - 31.12.2005