Soil Contamination

Soil contamination is the occurrence of pollutants in soil above a certain level causing a deterioration or loss of one or more soil functions. Also, Soil Contamination can be considered as the presence of man-made chemicals or other alteration in the natural soil environment. This type of contamination typically arises from the rupture of underground storage tanks, application of pesticides, percolation of contaminated surface water to subsurface strata, leaching of wastes from landfills or direct discharge of industrial wastes to the soil. The most common chemicals involved are petroleum hydrocarbons, solvents, pesticides, lead and other heavy metals. The occurrence of this phenomenon is correlated with the degree of industrialization and intensity of chemical usage. At EU-level, the issue of contaminated sites (local contamination) and contaminated land (diffuse contamination) has been considered by: 1. Diffuse soil pollution and heavy metals in topsoils 2. The Indicator "Progress in management of contaminated sites (CSI 015)" 3. National/European approaches. 4. the Joint Research Centre (JRC) with a number of actions

1. Diffuse soil pollution and Heavy Metals in topsoils

Arsenic assessment in EU Topsoils (27/3/2024) : JRC makes available the first pan-European high resolution Arsenic dataset and proposed propabilities of having As higher than certain thresholds..

Cadmium assessment in EU Topsoils (6/12/2023) : JRC makes available the first pan-European high resolution Cadmium dataset and analyses the reasons for Cd distribution.

Zinc assessment in EU Topsoils (16/6/2023): JRC makes available the first pan-European high resolution Zinc dataset and analyses the reasons for Zn distribution.

Mercury assessment in EU Topsoils (21/1/2021): JRC makes available the firt pan-European high resolution Mercury dataset and analyses the reasons for Hg distribution.

Copper distirubtion in EU soils (21.5.2018): The LUCAS topsoil samples (21,682 data records) have been analysed for heavy metals. The JRC makes available the first interpolated results (500m resolution) of copper distribution in European Union topsoils. More detailed maps on heavy metals and soil contaminants will become available soon.

Caesium-137 and Plutonium-239+240: Based on LUCAS samples, caesium and plutonium (137Cs, 239Pu, 240Pu) assessment has been concluded for Central part of  Europe (France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland).

Publications - research to support those findings:

Fendrich, A.N., Van Eynde, E., Stasinopoulos, D.M., Rigby, R.A., Mezquita, F.Y. and Panagos, P., 2024. Modeling arsenic in European topsoils with a coupled semiparametric (GAMLSS-RF) model for censored data. Environment International, 185:108544.

Ballabio, C., Jones, A. and Panagos, P., 2024. Cadmium in topsoils of the European Union–An analysis based on LUCAS topsoil database. Science of The Total Environment, 912: 168710

Van Eynde, E., Fendrich, A. N., Ballabio, C., & Panagos, P. 2023. Spatial assessment of topsoil zinc concentrations in Europe. Science of The Total Environment, 892: 164512.

Ballabio, C., Jiskra, M., Osterwalder, S., Borrelli, P., Montanarella, L., Panagos, P. 2021. A spatial assessment of mercury content in the European Union topsoil. Science of the Total Environment. 769. Article No: 144755

Panagos, P., Jiskra, M., Borrelli, P., Liakos, L., Ballabio, C. 2021. Mercury in European topsoils: Anthropogenic sources, stocks and fluxes. Environmental Research. 201. Article No:  111556

Ballabio, C., Panagos, P., Lugato, E., Huang, J.-H., Orgiazzi, A., Jones, A., Fernández-Ugalde, O., Borrelli, P., Montanarella, L. 2018. Copper distribution in European topsoils: An assessment based on LUCAS soil survey.  Science of the Total Environment, 636: 282-298.

Panagos, P., Ballabio, C., Lugato, E., Jones, A., Borrelli, P., Scarpa, S., Orgiazzi, A., Montanarella, L. 2018. Potential Sources of Anthropogenic Copper Inputs to European Agricultural Soils. Sustainability , 10, 2380

Yunta, F., Schillaci, C., Panagos, P., Van Eynde, E., Wojda, P. and Jones, A., 2024. Quantitative analysis of the compliance of EU Sewage Sludge Directive by using the heavy metal concentrations from LUCAS topsoil database. Environmental Science and Pollution Research,in Press

LUCAS 2009/12 analysis included the following heave metals. The point results cannot be made available due to privacy issues.However, EUSO develops advanced assessments and datasets:

As: Arsenic
Cd: Cadmium
Co  Cobalt
Cr: Cromium    
Cu: Copper    
Fe: Iron    
Mg: Magnesium    
Mn: Manganese    
Ni: Nickel    
Pb: lead    
Sb: Antimony    
V:  Vanadium
Zn: Zinc    
Hg: Mercury

Maps of heavy metals in the soils of the EU, (19/12/2018) : based on LUCAS 2009 HM data, this dataset contains detailed maps of heavy metals in the EU27 (EU-28 except Croatia), as documented in the article "Maps of heavy metals in the soils of the European Union and proposed priority areas for detailed assessment" by Gergely Tóth, Tamás Hermann, Gábor Szatmári and László Pásztor, in Science of The Total Environment, Volume 565, 15 September 2016, Pages 1054-1062.  Maps for As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Hg, Pb, Mn, Sb, Co and Ni concentrations in European topsoil.

2008 (old obsolete data): For the purpose of research only, the data "Heavy Metals in topsoils" are made available to the public. Download the data for mapping concentrations of eight critical heavy metals (arsenic, cadmium, chromium, copper, mercury, nickel, lead and zinc) using the 1,588 georeferenced topsoil samples from the FOREGS Geochemical database.

2. Indicator "Progress in management of contaminated sites (CSI 015)"

- at the European Environment Agency (EEA) through work around the core set indicator "Progress in management of contaminated sites (CSI 015)" (link to EEA)

- (After 2007) ESDAC and the indicator "Progress in management of contaminated sites" (CSI 015): 

In the context of the development of the European Soil Data Centre (ESDAC) by JRC, considered as a focal point for soil related data in Europe, it was jointly decided by the European Environment Agency (EEA) and Joint Research Centre (JRC) that all soil data management activities carried out by EEA in collaboration with EIONET will be transferred to the JRC. This decision took place at the "EIONET Workshop on Soil" in September 2007 with representatives from DG ENV, EEA and JRC, together with representatives from the EIONET 'National Reference Centres for Soil' and members of the Steering Committee of the 'European Soil Bureau Network'. After the Brussels 2007 EIONET Workshop and a consecutive workshop in 2009, in which data needs by EEA and DG ENV were expressed, and in which a number of actions were planned. ESDAC embarked on two major data collections. One on 'soil organic carbon' and 'soil erosion' in 2009-2010, and one on 'contaminated sites' in 2011-2012, the latter aiming at making an update of the indicator "Progress in management of contaminated sites". 

For the EIONET Data Collection on Contaminated Sites 2011, EIONET countries were asked to provide their updated information on various variables related to contaminated sites, following a questionnaire which was not very different from similar exercises conducted by the EEA before 2007. The draft report of the data collection exercise is used as input to the JRC Reference Report "Progress in the Management of Contaminated Sites in Europe". 

The underlying data for the report are stored in this MS Excel file. Some data/information that arrived at JRC after the data collection deadline (for Czech Republic, Greece, Italy, Latvia) are bundled in an additional Zip file. The results of the exercise were also used in a scientific paper: 
Panagos, P., Van Liedekerke, M., Yigini, Y., Montanarella, L. 2013. Contaminated Sites in Europe: Review of the Current Situation Based on Data Collected through a European Network. Journal of Environmental and Public Health, vol. 2013, Article ID 158764, pp 1-11. doi:10.1155/2013/158764.

After 2015 the Ad-hoc Working Group on Contaminated Sites and Brownfields (AHWG) was created under EEA's EIONET National Reference Centre on Soil. The AHWG had the mandate to revise the indicator "Progress in the management of contaminated sites" which was now inserted in a new category of EEA Indicators namely "Land and Soil", with code Indicator- LSI003.  The aim of this new category of indicators is to emphasize the importance of soil and land resources and to attract policy attention and the selected indicators are:

• land take
• soil moisture
• imperviousness and imperviousness change
• organic soil carbon
• progress in the management of contaminated sites

The revision of the "Progress in the management of contaminated sites" indicator is intended to be included in the State of the Environment Report  SOER2020 by the EEA.

(30 Nov 2018)   In 2017 EIONET countries were asked to provide updated information on various variables related to contaminated sites, following a questionnaire which introduced a new definition of the site status. The data collection exercise was used as input to the JRC Reference Report "Status of local soil contamination in Europe" (2018). The data collected by each country are not totally comparable yet but progress towards a better understanding of the "Progress in the management of contaminated sites in Europe" was made.

The consolidated data of the various questionnaires from 2001 until 2017 are available in this MS Excel file.

3. National/European approaches

- Additional information on National/European approaches can be found in the sites below:

• Common Forum on Contaminated Land
• The International Committee on Contaminated Land (ICCL) http://www.iccl.ch/
• FAO Global Symposium on Soil Pollution (2018) (link to proceedings)
• The COST Action - Industrial Contaminated Sites and Health Network (2014-2019)
• EEA publication on national approaches (1999): http://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/Topic_report_No_131999
• EEA indicator on progress in management of contaminated sites in Europe: Progress in management of contaminated sites (CSI 015/LSI 003) (Assessment published May 2014)
• a Database of FP6, FP7 and LIFE projects including Contaminated Soils exists; please contact ec-esdac@ec.europa.eu. This can be also downloaded from here

4. Joint Research Centre (JRC) with a number of actions:

• work on the IRENA indicators for Soil: pesticide soil contamination (indicator 20), soil erosion (indicator 23) and soil quality (indicator 29).
• work on a common risk assessment references for contaminated sites in Europe through organization of an expert meeting "Towards an European Common Framework for Risk Assessment of Contaminated Sites in Europe" (February 2005, Ispra, Italy)
• a workshop on "Contaminated Lands in Accession Countries: Benchmarking Historical Heritage and National Actions", jointly organized by the JRC and EC DG Environment (November 2003, Budapest, Hungary)
• a study on the ranking of contaminated sites (see the report "Derivation methods of soil screening values in Europe. A review and evaluation of national procedures towards harmonization")