CONTAMINATED LAND AND ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE: AN ANALYSIS OF CURRENT REMEDIAL STRATEGIES AND FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS

摘要

Contaminated land management is now a mature discipline and geotechnical engineers are very familiar with desk studies and site investigation procedures. However, remedial practice varies very considerably with legal and financial instruments moving practice in many countries away from landfill. Sustainability also has become a topic for debate and the paper considers some aspects of sustainability as applied to contaminated land management. The paper then gives an overview the current status of the principal remedial technologies that are in use worldwide and seeks to identify the constraints both technical and regulatory that influence the selection of remedial actions. The avoidance of future contaminated land is obviously very important but has received rather little technical analysis. Future directions in environmental risk management are therefore considered and in particular questions such as: What will be the pollutants of the future? Should the geotechnical engineer be more involved in the design of industrial facilities to minimise risks of environmental pollution? How can the geotechnical engineer ensure that chemicals that are hazardous to the soil and groundwater environments are appropriately regulated and managed?