ABSTRACT
The main pollutants of contaminated land are industry, mining, waste disposal and agriculture. Contaminated land from the past is mainly “industrially’’ contaminated and serious damage has been caused to both the environment and human health because of the misunderstanding and mishandling of the environmental risk posed by these industrially contaminated sites. Inherited sites and the projects dealing with them established the scientific and practical background as well as the legal and managerial framework of contaminated site management. In spite of cleaning up many inherited contaminated sites, the number of potentially contaminated sites and the number of polluting activities are continuously growing world-wide, including Europe, urging more efficient contaminated site management.
