Soil standards in urban land use planning

摘要

Appropriate consideration of endangered soils in urban land use planning needs soil standards, i.e. soil assessment systems that facilitate the control of type and intensity of human impact on soils in a professional way. Relevant instruments for soil protection in urban land use planning in Germany are weighing of public interests, impact regulation under the nature protection law, environmental impact assessment as well as avoidance, minimizing and compensation of soil destruction or degradation.Professional implementation of soil protection can be achieved by soil standards for contaminated areas, as well as by methods for functional soil assessment in uncontaminated areas. While soil standards with respect to pollutants are widely implemented, a vast variety of different approaches to functional soil assessment exist. As an approach towards standardisation, general requirements for soil assessment systems are named and discussed using practical examples. Finally, guidelines for the implementation of soil protection in land use planning on different levels are proposed.