383H. Meuser, Soil Remediation and Rehabilitation: Treatment of Contaminated and Disturbed Land, Environmental Pollution 23, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-5751-6_10, © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Since the 1980s in the industrialised countries in Europe and North America a systematic characterisation at contaminated sites has been carried out. This is pre-dominantly associated with risk assessment in relation to human health and environ-mental conditions. Investigation and assessment are based on different phases, the preliminary, the oriented and the detailed investigation. In the case of proven site contamination, which can cover soil, groundwater and soil vapour, a remediation plan is developed and ultimately the remediation measures are executed. The subse-quent containment and decontamination procedures should achieve the main target to exclude hazards to human health and to assure environmentally acceptable condi-tions. Thus, in the course of time, while the systematic investigation programmes took place technically ambitious containment and decontamination approaches were developed and continuously improved. Accordingly, most of the remediation techniques were invented and engineered in the well-developed industrialised coun-tries where the contamination became more obvious and important, e.g. Canada, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Scandinavian countries, United Kingdom and the USA. In relation to soil but also to the treatment of soil vapour and, in particular, groundwater, a remediation market came into existence which treated an increasing quantity of contaminated soil and groundwater.

For instance, in Germany the capacity for ex situ soil washing, bioremediation and thermal treatment was about 2.4 million tons in 1995 and in 2008 the capacity had already reached 7.1 million tons. In 2008 71 biological treatment plants existed, decontaminating 4.1 million tons of contaminated soil, whereas 20 soil washing and soil extraction plants treated 2.2 million tons and 9 thermal treatment facilities approximately 800,000 t. In summary, in Germany exactly 100 technology-based providers treated contaminated soils ex situ (Frauenstein and Mahrle 2009 ) . In the United Kingdom (U.K.) there were 75 companies providing technology-based solu-tions in 2007 but the remediation market continuously shows a tendency to expand, since, for example, between 2005 and 2010 it grew by 21%, reaching approximately € 500 million. In 2015 it is assumed that it will increase to € 640 million. In contrast

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to Germany, in most of the countries mentioned above, such as the U.K., excavation and removal (dig-and-dump) is the preferred solution, amounting to 76% of the total remediation costs in 2005. Nevertheless, in the period between 2001 and 2005 the market for alternative remediation approaches rose as well in the U.K. Examples are the containment market, which grew by 7% (in 2005: € 30 million), and soil wash-ing, which grew by 7% (2005: € 32 million). Moreover, other technologies which had only a low market share in the past (e.g. bioremediation 5%, solidi fi cation 7%, thermal treatment <1%) showed a similarly considerable increase between 2005 and 2010 (2011). This was caused on the one hand by a general increase in remedia-tion project numbers in the U.K. and, on the other hand, by site construction for the Olympic Games in London, which have been held on former industrialised brown fi elds (Randall 2007 ) .

The market for remediation services, which includes treatment of contaminated soils, groundwater and buildings, grew worldwide between the beginning of the 1990s and 2000/2001. In the USA, the biggest market worldwide, the turnover was € 6.6 billion in 1994 and in 2001 the fi gure was € 8.9 billion. In Canada the value was € 300 million in 1994 and 7 years later this amounted to € 800 million. In the European countries, including Western, Central and Eastern Europe, € 3.0 billion was recorded in 1994 and in 2000 the turnover was € 6.6 billion. In contrast, the market of the developing countries in Latin America, Asia and the Middle East reached values of € 600 million in 1994 and € 2.6 billion in 2000 (USITC 2004 ) .

After the beginning of the twenty- fi rst century the remediation sector continu-ously showed an increasing tendency. In Europe (initially in the developed countries in the West and North and since 1990 in the former socialist countries in Eastern Europe such as Poland and the Czech Republic) there is a continuing strong devel-opment due to the following reasons:

The proposed EU Land fi ll Directive will exacerbate the dig-and-dump solution • in the near future; in addition, other important directives such as the EU Water Framework Directive and the EU REACH Programme for chemical hazards will contribute to the increasing necessity to treat contaminated sites. Furthermore, some countries (e.g. U.K.) enforce quotas for new housing and • commercial buildings on brown fi elds in order to protect uncontaminated green fi elds on the city periphery. Land remediation standards across Europe are being developed and • harmonised. The growing environmental awareness of the public means that contaminated • land is considered to be a scare factor in combination with the political decisions in some countries to prioritise environmental issues; moreover, there is greater availability of environmental information to the public in relation to evidence of the impact of contaminants on human health. From the economic point of view, public sector funding for remediation expanded, • whereby particularly the countries in Eastern Europe bene fi ted from this. Apart from payment of subsidies, tax incentives were established. In general, the property value might rise after remediating the contaminated land.

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The effectiveness of remediation techniques improved due to a high number of • research projects which were often approved, particularly in relation to new environmental technologies. They include integrated remediation approaches, which use different methods simultaneously or sequentially, and monitoring technologies. In the context of the increasing number of sites and soil and groundwater quantities to be remediated it was possible to reduce the operational cost of clean-up.

A lot of remediation techniques have originated from other technological pro-cesses. For instance, the containment approaches such as side barrier installation stem from the construction sector and thermal treatment is also associated with techniques which are normally used for treating hazardous waste. Some treatment approaches such as stabilisation and phytoremediation are strongly linked to the agricultural sector. However, there are also several remediation techniques which might be preferentially developed in association with the contaminant problem, e.g. bioremediation and most of the groundwater clean-up methods.

Irrespective of the technique available, an expanding remediation market in the developed countries might be expected if one takes the land consumption in urban agglomerations into account. The lack of land for construction and the dispropor-tion between already veri fi ed contaminated sites and successfully remediated sites (e.g. in Germany 313,600 registered contaminated sites in 2010/2011 of which only 25,900 sites (= 8.2%) have been completely remediated) require the redevelopment of areas which have been anthropogenically used beyond an agricultural use.

In a similar way the shortage of drinking-water in urbanised areas might require a remediation of contaminated plumes in line with the reduction of discharges. The increasing urbanisation which can be identi fi ed not only in the developed world does not allow the presence of highly contaminated source areas from which plumes are dispersed, endangering the well system of the public supply.

The factors shortage of land for construction and contamination of drinking-water derived from groundwater are particularly important in the developing countries such as China and India. Until the beginning of this century there was no awareness of the environmental factor soil at all and only little knowledge about the groundwater con-tamination problem in the developing countries. In China, for example, in the last decade the importance of the topic handling contaminated soils increased enormously, leading to a new expanding remediation market which can be seen in some urban agglomerations such as densely populated cities like Hangzhou and Suzhou. For this reason, the expected and desired growth of the contaminated soil and groundwater treatment fi eld is probably not restricted to the countries with a relatively long reme-diation experience. There might be forecasts for great growth in the Eastern European countries and the Asian countries, where a high number of former industry sites are located but remediation measures have only occurred to a very small extent.

A large-scale impact on originally undisturbed land is also associated with mining activities. Open-cast coal mining, quarries, open pit mines for unconsolidated rock and peatland harvesting consume huge terrains where the vegetation is cut and dif-ferent upper layers of soil and rock are removed. Moreover, ore mining areas leave behind considerable areas, indicating soil contamination. Results from shaft mining

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are large-scale heaps with differing chemical composition which frequently cause leaching of contaminants associated with groundwater problems. Because of the extent of disturbed land, which is often located close to urban agglomerations, reha-bilitation in mining and raw material extraction areas is principally required. This necessity results predominantly from the land consumption and the negative impacts on groundwater and surface waters. It should be noted that the areas used for mining are relatively small at country level (e.g. in Australia only 1,366 km 2 (= 0.02%) are used for mining) but at regional level the extent of disturbed land must be considered as a serious problem. Thus, the most important motivation for rehabilitation strate-gies is agricultural re-cultivation to assure suf fi cient land for crop production and re-establishment of woodland to compensate for losses due to climate change. These strategies are complemented by soil decontamination measures as well as the cre-ation of leisure landscapes, particularly in the proximity of urban areas.

In consideration of the fact that the world’s population will increase and that subsequently the raw material exploitation will reach a higher level in the future, the demand for site rehabilitation of exploited terrains might continue to remain impor-tant. These circumstances apply mainly to the developing countries such as China, India and Russia where the population growth is high and simultaneously a high number of raw material extraction areas are present. Hence, the rehabilitation pro-cesses must occur to prevent devastated land without the possibility to grow crops or to plant trees and to avoid moonscapes on our planet.

Whether the predicted development happens quickly or slowly is dif fi cult to forecast. Taking the carbon dioxide and global warming discussion into consider-ation and the awareness in the public and in politics, the fi rst political decisions were initiated relatively fast (Kyoto Protocol in 1997 and subsequent UN Climate Change Conferences). However, effective decisions have not been taken up to now because some important countries tend to block the development due to their prefer-ence for economic interests rather than the required ecological approach, although everybody knows the measures must be taken as fast as possible. Unfortunately, in relation to the soil and groundwater factors a rapid increase in awareness and sub-sequent political decisions have not occurred to a suf fi cient extent up to now. However, the aggravation of the ecological situation in association with the shortage of usable land in and outside urban agglomerations will probably necessitate the taking of action more quickly than assumed.

References

Frauenstein, J., & Mahrle, S. (2009). News from being on the prowl for soil. Altlasten-Spectrum, 2 , 85–98 (in German).

Randall, J. (2007). The land remediation industry . EIC Guide to the UK Environmental Industry. www.eic-guide.co.uk/docs/contam.pdf . Accessed 18 May 2012.

USITC – U.S. International Trade Commission. (2004). Remediation and nature and landscape protection services: an examination of U.S. and foreign markets . USITC Publication 3727, Washington, DC.