ABSTRACT
Two hundred years of industrialization refl ect situations of environmental contamination in Europe. In the context of the European Soil Data Centre (ESDAC), the Joint Research Centre (JRC) and the European Environmental Agency (EEA) agreed to harmonize European data related with soil (Liedekerke et al. 2014). The “Progress in the management of Contaminated Sites in Europe” report (Liedekerke et al. 2014) summarizes information on the management of contaminated sites obtained from National Reference Centres for Soil from countries that belong to the European Environment Information and Observation Network (EIONET). From the 36 members of the network, 27 participated in the 2011-2012 campaign for data collection. A tentative extrapolation to all Europe estimates 2.5 million of potentially contaminated sites, of which about 14% are expected to be contaminated and likely to require remediation (Liedekerke et al. 2014). Industrial and commercial activities together with waste disposal represent almost two thirds of local soil contamination (Liedekerke et al. 2014). The contaminants affecting the solid matrix (soil, sludge, and sediment) are (by decreasing percentage): heavy metals (35%), mineral oil (24%), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH; 11%), aromatic hydrocarbons (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene-BTEX; 10%), chlorinated hydrocarbons (8%), phenols (1%), and cyanides (1%); the remaining contaminants (“others”) represent 10% of solid matrix contamination (Liedekerke et al. 2014).
