Comparison of Soil Clean-up Standards for Trace Elements Between Countries: Why do they differ? (9 pages)

Goal, Scope and Background

In the nineteen nineties most European countries issued legislation on soil protection, including soil contamination. In the case of a presumed contamination, soil investigation mostly follows a stepwise approach starting with a preliminary investigation, then an in-depth investigation and, finally, remediation. Soil clean-up standards are often foreseen as trigger criteria to determine the need for an in-depth soil investigation or for remediation. There are however large differences in soil clean-up standards. This is partly because of the different roles of soil clean-up standards in each legislative framework and partly because of differences in the soil clean-up standard (SCS) derivation procedures. Despites these differences there are large similarities in the concepts of the derivation procedures for clean-up standards. A better understanding of the differences in clean-up standards is needed. In order to clarify the variation, the background of the clean-up standards for a selected number of countries was investigated. The objective of this paper is to investigate the underlying reason why country-wide generic soil and groundwater clean-up standards of eight trace elements (cadmium, chromium (III), copper, mercury, lead, nickel, zinc and arsenic) differ between the selected countries.

Main Features

To avoid misinterpretation of the differences in application of the clean-up standards, a short overview of the legislative role of clean-up standards is given first. Differences in model concepts and parameter values are discussed, followed by a comparison of the generic soil and groundwater clean-up standards for trace elements and a discussion on the sources of variation. The influence of the use of ecotoxicological criteria and data for the derivation of soil clean-up standards will be discussed in more detail. Selected countries were Canada, the Flemish Region (Belgium), France, Germany, Great-Britain, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and United States of America (USA).

Results and Discussion

When soil clean-up standards for eight trace elements (cadmium, chromium (III), copper, mercury, lead, nickel, zinc and arsenic) were compared between the selected countries differences of more than a factor 1000 arose. Notwithstanding the use of similar derivation procedures, differences were caused by the use of different software models with their specific input data, boundary conditions and applied protection criteria for humans and the ecology. Ecotoxicological criteria tend to lower the soil clean-up standard for the selected trace elements.

Conclusions

In the countries that are included in this study, clean-up standards are used is different ways, this is for the determination of the necessity for remediation or for the need for further soil investigation. This paper shows a wide variation in the clean-up standards, which has further implication on the decision for remediation or further investigation and, hence, the financial costs of soil management. All the clean-up standards have as primary goal the protection of human health. A number of countries also include the protection of the ecological function of the soil. Differences in selected software model, (standard) parameters values, selected human toxicological and ecotoxicological criteria, are reason for a substantial variation in the clean-up standards for trace elements.

Recommendations and Perspective

. Is this variation justified? The derivation of soil clean-up standards involves - besides scientific elements - political elements, like differentiation in landuse types (agricultural, residential, recreational, industrial), receptor at risk or protection level. It is obvious that harmonization of these elements will be complicated. However, a European action programme, like the thematic strategy for soil protection, could initiate this process of harmonization. Nevertheless, soil-clean-up standards could never be uniform over the whole of Europe because they include country specific elements (geographical, ethnological) and political decisions.     

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