DERIVATION METHODS OF SOIL SCREENING VALUES IN EUROPE. A REVIEW AND EVALUATION OF NATIONAL PROCEDURES TOWARDS HARMONISATION EDITOR CLAUDIO CARLON EUR 22805 EN - 2007 DERIVATION METHODS OF SOIL SCREENING VALUES IN EUROPE A REVIEW AND EVALUATION OF NATIONAL PROCEDURES TOWARDS HARMONISATION A report of the ENSURE Action Editor Claudio Carlon Technical Editor Marco D’Alessandro ______________________________________________________________________ In bibliographies, this report should be refereed to as: Carlon, C. (Ed.) (2007). Derivation methods of soil screening values in Europe. A review and evaluation of national procedures towards harmonization. European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Ispra, EUR 22805-EN, 306 pp. The mission of the Institute for Environment and Sustainability is to provide scientific-technical support to the European Union’s Policies for the protection and sustainable development of the European and global environment. Editor Claudio Carlon Technical Editor Marco D’Alessandro European Commission Directorate-General Joint Research Centre Institute for Environment and Sustainability I – 21020 Ispra (VA) Contact information Address: Marco D’Alessandro, RWER Unit, IES, TP.460, JRC-Ispra, Italy E-mail: [email protected] Tel.: +39 0332 789002 Fax: +39 0332 785601 http://ies.jrc.ec.europa.eu http://www.jrc.ec.europa.eu Legal Notice Neither the European Commission nor any person acting on behalf of the Commission is responsible for the use which might be made of this publication. A great deal of additional information on the European Union is available on the Internet. It can be accessed through the Europa server http://europa.eu.int JRC PUBSY 7123 EUR 22805 EN ISBN: 978-92-79-05238-5 ISSN: 1018-5593 Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities © European Communities, 2007 Reproduction is authorised provided the source is acknowledged Printed in Italy DERIVATION METHODS OF SOIL SCREENING VALUES IN EUROPE A REVIEW AND EVALUATION OF NATIONAL PROCEDURES TOWARDS HARMONISATION Authors Claudio Carlon1, Marco D’Alessandro1, Frank Swartjes2 European Commission – DG Joint Research Centre, Institute for Environment and Sustainability, Rural, Water and Ecosystem Resources Unit National Institute of Public Health and the Environment, Laboratory of Ecological Risk Assessment Experts who contributed to country reports and peer review Dietmar Müller Loredana Musmeci Umweltbundesamt GmbH (Austrian Federal Environment Reparto Igiene del Suolo e Rifiuti, Istituto Superiore di Agency) Spittelauer Lände 5 1090 Wien, Austria Sanità, Viale Regina Elena 299, 00161 Roma, Italy Christa Cornelis1, Griet Van Gestel2 Gregorauskiene Virgilija, Kestutis Kadunas VITO, Boeretang 200, 2400 Mol, Belgium Geochemistry Group, Geological Survey of Lithuania, S. OVAM, Stationsstraat 110, 2800 Mechelen, Belgium Konarskio 35 2600 VILNIUS Lithuania Henri Halen Eleonora Wcislo, Marek Korcz Institute for Ecology of Industrial Areas SPAQuE s.a. Bld d'Avroy, 38/6, 4000 LIEGE, Belgium Kossutha St. PL - 40 -844 Katowice, Poland Milagros Vega1, Maria Dolores Fernández2, and Milan Sanka Jose’ V. Tarazona2 Czech Institute for Nature Protection, Research and Monitoring Base, Lidicka 25-27, 657 20 Brno, Czeck 1- ERA Consult, C/ Palencia, E – 28020 MADRID Republic 2- Spanish National Institute for Research and Technology (INIA), 28040 Madrid, Spain Christina Ihlemann1, Irene Edelgaard1, John Jensen2 Yvonne Österlund1, Celia Jones2, Mark Elert1 1- Danish Environmental Protection Agency Strandgade 1- Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, SE- 29, DK-1401 Copenhagen K 106 48 Stockholm,Sweden 2- National Environmental Research Institute Vejlsoevej 2- Kemakta Konsult AB Box 12655 112 93 Stockholm, DK - 8600 Silkeborg, Denmark Sweden Frank Swartjes1, Michiel Rutgers1, Leo Jaana Sorvari and Jussi Reinikainen Posthuma1, Herman Walthaus2 Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE) .O. Box 140, 1 - RIVM - National Institute of Public Health and the 00251 Helsinki, Finland Environment, Laboratory of Ecological Risk Assessment, Antonie van Leeuwenhoeklaan 9, 3721 MA Bilthoven, The Netherlands Benoit Hazebrouck 2- Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the INERIS, Parc Technologique Alata BP Environment (VROM), PO Box 30945; 2500 GX Den F - 60550 Verneuil en Halatte, France Haag, The Netherlands Albania Grosso, Samantha Fishwick and Andreas Bieber Graham Merrington Federal Ministry for the Environment. Soil Protection and Contaminated Sites. Robert-Schuman-Platz 3, 53175 Environment Agency, Evenlode House Bonn, Germany Howbery Park, UK – OX10 8BD Wallingford, United Kingdom CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 2 PREFACE 8 INTRODUCTION TO SCREENING VALUES 10 (Claudio Carlon) 1.1. The meaning, basis and use of screening values 1.2. Comparison of screening values 2. RATIONALE AND METHODS OF THE REVIEW 16 (Claudio Carlon, Frank Swartjes) 2.1. Objectives 2.2. A coherent framework for the derivation of soil screening values 2.3. Methods for collecting information 2.4. Methods for the analysis of relevance and reasons of variability 3. ANALYSIS OF VARIABILITY AND REASONS OF DIFFERENCES 26 (Claudio Carlon, Frank Swartjes) 3.1. Regulatory framework and general features 3.2. Human health risk assessment 3.3. Ecological risk assessment 4. VARIABILITY OF SOIL SCREENING VALUES 58 (Frank Swartjes, Marco D'Alessandro, Claudio Carlon) 4.1. Procedure 4.2. Results 5. RELATION BETWEEN SOIL AND GROUNDWATER SVs 74 (Claudio Carlon, Marco D'Alessandro) 6. CONCLUSIONS AND OUTLOOK 76 (Claudio Carlon, Frank Swartjes) 7. REFERENCES 82 ANNEXES 86 Annex 1. QUESTIONNAIRE FORM AND RESULTS 88 1 Questionnaire form 2 Countries, type of screening values and authors of the questionnaire 3 Questionnaire results: regulatory framework and main features 4 Questionnaire results: human health risk assessment 5 Questionnaire results: ecological risk assessment Annex 2. COUNTRY REPORTS 127 1. Austria 127 2. Belgium 132 2.1 Flanders 132 2.2 Wallonian Region 137 3. Czech Republic 145 4. Denmark 150 5. Finland 157 6. France 164 7. Germany 174 8. Italy 181 9. Lithuania 186 10. Poland 190 11. Slovak Republic 195 12. Spain 200 13. Sweden 209 14. The Netherlands 220 15. United Kingdom 231 Annex 3. SCREENING VALUES 243 1. Austria 245 2. Belgium 249 2.1 Flanders 255 2.2 Wallonian Region 260 3. Czech Republic 265 4. Denmark 271 5. Finland 272 6. France 273 7. Germany 276 8. Italy 280 9. Lithuania 290 10. Poland 295 11. Slovak Republic 298 12. Spain 302 13. Sweden 303 14. The Netherlands 304 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Problem definition Soil Screening Values (SVs) are generic quality standards that are used to regulate land contamination. Soil SVs adopted in European countries are widely variable in multiple aspects. The use of SVs varies from setting long term quality objectives, via triggering further investigations, to enforcing remedial actions. Derivation methods of SVs have scientific and political bases; they also differ from country to country, and SVs numerical values vary consequently. In relation to the common market and common environmental policies in Europe, this variability has raised concern among both regulators and risk assessors. As reported in the Soil Thematic Strategy discussion documents (Van Camp et al., 2004), a further alignment of European SVs derivation methods is generally supported. To what extent this can be done and the possible drawbacks are still matter for discussion. The idea of a toolbox approach, which addresses the harmonization of specific building blocks of SVs derivation procedures while giving wide room for national diversities, was al- ready discussed and encountered significant favor in an expert meeting in Ispra in February 2005 (Carlon, 2005). Nevertheless, it was also clear at that time that a detailed analysis of commonalities and differences among European national ap- proaches, essential for the evaluation of the technical feasibility of harmonization, was lacking. In particular, besides the identification of differences, a further insight was necessary on the reasons for the differences. Based on this consideration, the idea of the present review was launched. Objectives The present review analyses the bases of screening values used in EU Member States and initiated a discussion on the reasons for their differences. Specific objec- tives of the review were the following: • to describe the state of the art of SVs derivation methods and their applica- tion in Europe, • to assess commonalities and main differences among national methods, • to gain a further insight in reasons of differences, • to identify opportunities for harmonization. The work focused on soil contamination, but also investigated the relation between the soil and groundwater SVs. 2 __________________________________________________________________________________ EUROPEAN COMMISSION – JOINT RESEARCH CENTRE The survey concerned a representative group of countries, encompassing old and new EU Member States, i.e. Austria, Belgium (Walloon, Flanders and Brussels), The Czech Republic, Germany, Denmark, Spain, Finland, France, Italy, Lithuania, The Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia, Sweden and United Kingdom. The analysis was done at the level of the main assumptions, methods and technical elements. A detailed comparison of algorithms and input values could be addressed in a subsequent analysis. Procedure for collecting information The collection of information was obtained with the voluntary contribution of ex- perts from the investigated countries. The information was requested by means of a questionnaire