Towards Common References for Risk Assessment of Contaminated Sites in Europe

Abstract

In the last 20 years Ecological Risk Assessment (ERA) methodologies have been increasingly applied for setting environmental quality criteria. With concern to soil quality, only few European countries have adopted ERA for the definition of screening values and emediation targets. In particular. the application of ERA at site specific scale is still seldom included in the decisional process. Three main reasons for this delay are the poor interest for the ecosystem protection in comparison with that of human health, the lack of operational methods to deal with scientific uncertainty and the need for European common references. To overcome these constraints, the JRC launched a long term research framework, named HERACLES, Human and Ecological Risk Assessment for Contaminated Land in European States, aimed at promoting the development of common references of risk assessment for contaminated land in Europe.JRC.H.6-Spatial data infrastructure