Transcript © A. Pehamberger Soil monitoring on (diffuse) soil contamination Status of soil policy and monitoring – an overview.

© A. Pehamberger
Soil monitoring on (diffuse) soil
contamination
Status of soil policy and monitoring – an overview
1
Contents
 General aspects and definitions
 EU soil policy
 Examples for EU wide soil monitoring systems
 Key issues for monitoring diffuse soil contamination
 Soil indicators for diffuse soil contamination
 Results and recommendations for soil monitoring
 Proposal for guidelines
2
Soil threats
 Soil erosion
 Decline of soil organic matter
 Soil contamination (diffuse and local)
 Soil sealing
 Soil compaction
 Decline in soil biodiversity
 Salinisation
 Floods and Landslides
Source: EC Soil Communication, 2002
3
Diffuse vs. local soil contamination
 Diffuse soil contamination (d.s.c.) is the presence of a
substance or agent in the soil as a result of human activity
emitted from moving sources, from sources with a large
area, or from many sources (adapted from ISO 11074).
 Local soil contamination occurs where intensive industrial
activities, inadequate waste disposal, mining, military
activities or accidents pose a special threat to soil (EEA,
1999).
4
Soil information
 Soil Mapping: providing information on distribution of soil
types and enabling to identify areas of land suitable for
certain management purposes;
 Soil Inventory: providing an assessment of soil conditions
and/or properties at a point in time;
 Soil Monitoring: providing a series of assessments
showing how soil conditions and/or properties change over
time.
5
EU soil policy development
 EC Communication ‘Towards a Thematic Strategy for
Soil Protection’ (2002): Need to develop an EU wide
monitoring system with a legislative basis
 EU Thematic Strategy for Soil Protection (2006):
For identifying risk areas, the Commission encourages
Member States to use existing monitoring schemes
 Proposal for Soil Framework Directive (2006):
Preservation of soil functions,
Prevention of threats to soil and mitigation of their effects,
Restoration of degraded soils,
No monitoring requirements
6
EU soil policy –requirements
 SFD Article 9 - Prevention of soil contamination:
Member States shall take measures to limit introduction of
dangerous substances on or in the soil in order to avoid
accumulation that would hamper soil functions or give rise
to significant risks to human health or the environment.
 Industrial Emissions (Integrated Pollution Prevention
and Control) Directive 2010: prevention and control of
emissions into soil to avoid any pollution risk, returning the
site of IPPC installations to a “satisfactory state”, and
periodically monitoring soil on the site (min. every 10 years)
7
ICP Forest level I &
BioSoil project
1st survey: 1986-1996 (ICP Forest Level I)
2nd survey: 2004-2008 (Forest Focus Reg.)
16 x 16 km Grid, ~ 5.000 sites
Soil profile description
Soil sampling and analyses at fixed soil depth
(e.g. Corg, bulk density, heavy metals)
Manual for harmonised monitoring
http://www.icp-forests.org/pdf/FINAL_soil.pdf
Source: De Vos, B. & Cools, N. (2011)
8
LUCAS 2009 Soil Survey
Land Use and Cover Area frame sample Survey
Project in co-operation of Eurostat, DG Env. and DG JRC
27 EU Member states1,2; ~22.000 soil samples
(top soil, soil quality parameters, heavy
metals)
2012: Bulgaria and Romania
2012-2013: Iceland
20xx: next3?, regular monitoring?
Source: JRC (2012)
¹ Cyprus has joined the survey on voluntary bases, adopted the same sampling methodology , but LUCAS LC-LU data are missing.
² Malta had difficulties to adjust the sampling grid for the LUCAS standards but samples are already included in LUCAS 2009.
³Next LUCAS soil surveys will include CANDIDATE COUNTRIES.
9
Key issues for monitoring d.s.c.
Main diffuse sources:
 Atmospheric deposition
 Deposition of contaminants from soil erosion
 Direct application of substances like pesticides, sewage sludge,
fertilisers and manure.
Monitoring d.s.c. at risk areas rather than routine grid
sampling (results from grid samples are useful to derive
background values or reference values)
Source: ENVASSO (Huber et al., 2009), TWG Contamination and Land management Vol. VI (Van-Camp, 2004)
10
Key issues for monitoring d.s.c.
Results from monitoring should enable to
 evaluate the impact of diffuse inputs in relation to other inputs
 evaluate the future state of the system
Frequency and spatial resolution
 average sampling intervals of 5-20 years
 cover repetitive areas (land use, climate, geology, soil type, soil
management systems), dependent on the scale
Source: ENVASSO (Huber et al., 2009), TWG Contamination and Land management Vol. VI (Van-Camp, 2004)
11
Selected key issues and indicators
Source: ENVASSO (Huber et al., 2009)
12
Data requirements
Source: ENVASSO (Huber et al., 2009)
13
Critical loads exceedances
ICP Integrated Monitoring
Exceedances of critical loads for
acidification and eutrophication
Good relationship between critical load
exceedances and empirical impact
indicators at 18 ICP IM catchments
Under emission reductions envisaged for
2020 increase of level of protection is
minor.
Source: Holmberg et al. (2013) in Ecological indicators
14
Heavy metals in soils - Austria
Exceedances
of guideline
values acc.
to Austrian
Standard
L 1075
15
Soil monitoring in SEE
ESBN report (2005): Soil resources of Europe. 2nd edition
ESBN workshop (2006, Zagreb): Soil data and soil protection policies
in the countries of south-eastern Europe.
Conference on Soil Protection Activities and Soil Quality Monitoring in
South Eastern Europe (2009, Sarajevo).
http://eusoils.jrc.ec.europa.eu
Key issues:
 Many soil data are available, but often not digitised
 Many countries are not part of the European Union, thus
participation in project needs other funding schemes
16
Recommendations
 Soil monitoring should be built on existing systems (EU,
national)
 Follow guidelines at EU and/or national level for setting up a
soil monitoring system
 System design should be implemented in a dynamic and
flexible nature (action driven monitoring)
 Parameter sets should address the requirements for
relevant soil indicators, both short term and long term
 Define and ensure responsibilities for field work, analytical
measures and data base maintenance
17
Proposal for guidelines
In line with available guidelines for
Air and Water
I. General introduction
II. Guidelines for monitoring diffuse soil contamination
A. Linking d.s.c. monitoring to environmental policy
development
B. Modernizing and upgrading national monitoring
networks and information systems
C. Improving coordination of national monitoring
programmes to d.s.c.
18
Contact & Information
Alexandra Freudenschuß
+43-1-31304/3691
[email protected]
Sigbert Huber
+43-1-31304/3670
[email protected]
Umweltbundesamt
www.umweltbundesamt.at
13th session UNECE WGEMA
Geneva ■ 1. Nov. 2012
19
Accumulation of heavy metals
in agricultural soils

Data: Baltic Soil Survey,
FOREGS Geochemical Baseline
Mapping Programme, EIONET

Heavy metal accumulation
index calculated. Enrichment
of heavy metals in agricultural
topsoils compared to subsoils
in Europe

Definition of topsoils and
subsoils important
20
Data requirements
Site and profile descriptions
Analytical parameters
 Heavy metals (Cd, Cu, Pb, Zn, Hg, As, Ni, Cr)
 Persistent organic pollutants e.g. PAHs, dioxins, PCBs, or pesticides
such as HCH, DDT or DDE
 Nutrients (nitrogen, phosphor)
 Organic carbon, soil texture, carbonates, pH value
Biomass uptake by plants; parent material;
critical leaching; actual deposition of
nitrogen, sulphur and base cations
21
Identification
and
Management of
Contaminated
sites
Source: EEA, 2007