Author(s)

T. Ertel & B. Schug

Abstract

Pressure on drinking water resources due to urban industrial areas is a common problem in European cities. State-of-the-art remediation of contaminated groundwater is based on single-site approaches neglecting cost-effective regional groundwater management and urban planning aspects. Ongoing research by a consortium of technology developers, problem holders, economists and administrators is focussed on a comprehensive approach to tackle these problems. Technology development include the integrated investigation of groundwater contamination at regional scale, fingerprinting and on-site analysis at single site scale and the implementation of innovative remediation technologies. Problem oriented implementation strategies include administrative procedures, urban planning aspects, and real estate market needs. Key goals to be met are the conservation of groundwater resources and economic revitalisation of urban industrial areas 1 Introduction Most European cities are located in river basins and use groundwater from local shallow aquifer systems. Rapid industrial development in this century has been and is still generating groundwater pollution within city boundaries, exceeding legal requirements. Within the last decades changes in land use have resulted in complex contamination patterns, such as heterogeneous distribution of contaminants, different contaminants and large Landfill areas (see fig. 1). State of the art approaches for site investigation and remediation regard only site-specific solutions (see fig.2). But in general all site owners are declaring that contamination has been caused either by their neighbours or a former user of this site. Traditional investigation methods in most cases need very long time for the identification of the real polluter or even fail on this matter.

Keywords