diffuse contamination
ticide and heavy metals1 . Anyway , according to EEA, the use of pesticides is decreased in most EU countries over the past decade, probably thanks to the Common Agricultural Policy. The main contaminants connected with industrial activities are hydrocarbons, heavy metals, aromatic hydrocarbons BTEX, PAHs, mineral oil, chloride hydrocarbons (CHC) and phenols.
size: from europe to milan europe
the european environment agency estimates the number of contaminated sites at approximately 250000 sites. this number is expected to grow to nearly 3 million sites2 . “if current investigation trends continue, the number of sites needing remediation will increase by 50% by 2025”3
Data source: EEA (2000) 110
By contrast, in the countries where data regarding remediated land were available, around 80000 sites have been remediated in the last 30 years. In general a consistent share of remediation costs (35%) is covered by the public budget because applying the “polluterpays” concept is difficult in the case of the remediation of historical contamination.
The difficulties faced by EEA in analyzing the contamination trough Europe are linked to the heterogeneous criteria used to identify a contaminated site at international level. The enormous gap between estimates (250000 vs 3 million of sites) is connected with the “absence of a common European definition of a contaminated site” and it reflects a variety of approaches to “acceptable risk level”. Moreover access to data and information is difficult since soil users are many and the data have been collected by different organizations in view of different goals. Therefore only a general assessment of the conditions European soil is possible to date. Diffuse contamination, with the possible exception of acidification4 , is not a great problem for the European soil. Anyway contamination is high in restricted urban areas or hot spots due to diffused and localized sources. A diffuse contamination can be found, generally speaking, close to places of intensive agriculture, places affected by atmospheric fall out, industrial regions and communication routes. The map shows areas with an high probability of diffuse soil contamination (using data on chemical use in agriculture for diffuse contamination in agricultural areas) and area mapped as contaminated. For central and eastern European countries a “subjective classification based on national State of Environment Reports”5 has been used thus it’s possible that all relevant hot -spots have not been identified. An intense agricultural chemical use is present in the lowlands
1 contained in fertilizer, livestock sewages, plant protection product and depuration mud baths
4 Reduction of soil PH through deposition of nitrogen emit-
2 including the 250000 sites already mentioned
ted into the air
3 EEA (2007)
5 EEA (2000), Environmental issue series No 16, p.8 111