Research into contaminated land
The EU's Environment and Climate research programme is currently supporting two concerted actions on contaminated land research in Europe: one led by public authorities and the other industry-led. These two concerted actions have recently published a joint statement concerning the assessment of the impact of contaminated sites on humans and the environment. The aim is to define how research and development can contribute to establishing guidelines for risk assessment and remedial action. The statement "Towards a better future: Establishing fitness for use and sustainable development of contaminated land in Europe" was jointly published by CARACAS (Concerted action on risk assessment for contaminated sites in the EU) and NICOLE (Network for industrially contaminated land in Europe). It outlines the research needed to develop decision support tools for managing and solving contaminated land problems. Two areas are highlighted as starting points for this research: - The nature of contaminated land; - Fitness for use. According to the statement, Europe has made considerable progress in forging a common understanding of the problems created by industry and other activities. It emphasizes the need to act now to tackle the problems of contaminated land, and suggests that the development of new tools could significantly reduce the costs of solving the problems.