Derivation methods of remediation criteria for contaminated soils under different land uses and analysis of their standard values

Many countries such as USA, Canada, Denmark and Swiss, and their states or provinces, have carried out systematic researches on the remediation criteria of contaminated soils, and their relevant remediation standards for contaminated soils have also been enacted nationwide or statewide. Especially for USA, it has so many states that there are a series of methodologies provided for references, just as “soil cleanup levels” in Alaska, “soil remediation standards” in Arizona, “soil cleanup target levels” in Florida, “soil remediation goals” in North Carolina, and so do many other countries such as “Canada soil quality guidelines” and “Canada-wide standards for petroleum hydrocarbons”, “cut-off criteria” in Denmark, “action values” in Germany, “target cleanup levels” in Italy, “soil remediation intervention values” in Netherlands, and “clean-up values” in Swiss. Generally speaking, the protection of human health is the key point in most of the remediation standards among various countries or states. Meanwhile, ecosystem safety is also included as the protected objects independently, and sometimes groundwater protection is also taken into consideration directly or indirectly. At the same time, the past, current or future land uses are often discriminated in the remediation criteria for most of the countries or states. Nevertheless, the remediation standard for contaminated soils is still a gap in China and thus it is of great urgency to carry out the systematic and comprehensive research on the remediation criteria to meet the need for contaminated soil remediation under various land uses. In general, the research about “derivation methods of remediation criteria/standards for contaminated soils under different land uses and analysis of their standard values” is of great significance and necessity.Firstly, the connotation and function of remediation criteria and standards for contaminated soils are explained in brief combined with the screening values. Noticeably, the preliminary remediation goal is that remediation standards of contaminated soils intend for the protection of human health, was firstly developed at the national level in USA, while its guidance was commonly used to derive some screening levels under the similar supposed contexts and thus the screening values were used as the remediation goals for these soils. However, in 1996, the Soil Screening Guidance (SSG) was enacted by US EPA for the derivation of screening values specially, and stated that the function of soil screening levels is to screen out a contaminated site and its potential pollutants. And in most European countries, the screening values are regarded as soil-environmental quality standards rather than remediation standards of contaminated soils. In fact, remediation standards of contaminated soils should be the guidance for the nationwide or statewide remediation projects and the protection of plow lands.Land uses should be considered in derivation and development of remediation standards for contaminated soils, and the reference methods are suggested for the development of remediation standards for contaminated soils under various land uses. Then, it is followed by deriving and enacting methods of remediation criteria for contaminated soils under different land uses and the analysis of their standard values. We set forth the variations of the methods and the standard values under various land uses as the result of various remedial requirements and exposure scenarios from three aspects, that is, human health, ecosystem safety and groundwater protection. Generally speaking, exposure scenarios are different in various land uses, and there are some discrimination on exposure population, exposure pathways, and exposure parameters based on human health, while the differences are mainly reflected on receptors, and toxic indicators for eco-based remediation criteria. As for groundwater protection based remediation criteria, water quality standards are often used for the back calculation of soil remediation criteria by the soil-water partition equation, and they are somewhat different in terms of the function of groundwater under various land uses. Otherwise, remediation standards for Cd and benzene contaminated soils in some countries and states are compared qualitatively.In conclusion, many countries have enacted the nationwide or statewide remediation standards for contaminated soils, and are expressed by different denominations. In general, four types of land uses (agricultural, residential, commercial/industrial, groundwater-protection land uses) are considered in development of remediation standards, and there are some discrimination on the methods and the standard values under various land uses.

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.