Soil pollution standards

Ministry of the Environment (Japan) Standards for Soil Pollution, http //www.env.go.jp/en/water/soil/ sp.html. 

International Organization for Standardization (ISO), Soil Quality—Inhibition of Reproduction of Collembola (Folsomia Candida) by Soil Pollutants, ISO 11267, International Organization for Standardization, Geneva, Switzerland, 1999. 

Soil pollution Marine pollution Water pollutant Effluent standard Drinking-water standard... 

Jury WA, Focht DD, Farmer WJ. 1987a. Evaluation of pesticide groundwater pollution potential from standard indices of soil-chemical adsorption and biodegradation. J Environ Qual 16 422-428. 

Bonazountas, M. et al. (1981). Evaluation of seasonal soil/groundwater pollutant pathways via SESOIL Office of Water Regulations and Standards, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC. 

Because the significance of exposure has only been considered over the past few years, there is not as wide a selection of exposure models available as that for fate models. The latter have been applied for several decades to the calculation of ambient exposure levels compared with some standard values. Papers illustrative of human exposure assessments in this symposium include one on airborne pollutant exposure assessments by Anderson (2), a generic approach to estimating exposure in risk studies by Fiksel (5), and a derivation of pollutant limit values in soil or water based on acceptable doses to humans by Rosenblatt, Small and Kainz (6). 

The WFD, so far, has identified 33 priority hazardous pollutants (PHS), for which Environmental Quality Standards (EQS) have been set. To some extent, these EQS can be met through the establishment of emission control measures. These PHS may originate from several different sources and activities. The main sources of toxic substances to water bodies in Europe may be categorised as agriculture, sewage treatment plants, urban runoff, industry, contaminated lake/ river sediment, soils and landfills. Input via atmospheric transport and deposition has also been identified as an important source both far from and close to source areas. Many of the PS are today banned in Europe, but due to their persistence they are still present in the environment [30]. 

Figure 2.2 shows the total ion current trace and a number of appropriate mass chromatograms obtained from the pyrolysis gas chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis of the polluted soil sample. The upper trace represents a part of the total ion current magnified eight times. The peak numbers correspond with the numbers mentioned in Table 2.1 and refer to the identified compounds. The identification was based on manual comparison of mass spectra and relative gas chromatographic retention times with literature data [34, 35] and with data of standards available. In some cases unknown compounds were tentatively identified on the basis of a priori interpretation of their mass spectra (labelled tentative in Table 2.1). 

The polyaromatic hydrocarbons in the soil sample were quantitated by using an external standard of anthracene. The results reportedly for a polluted soil and sediment sample indicate that this flash evaporation-pyrolysis technique combined with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry is a valuable tool for rapidly screening polluted samples for virtually all types of anthropogenic contaminants except for heavy metals. 

The main comparisons between extraction methods have been made between the Soxhlet, ultrasonication, and supercritical fluid extraction [377, 398,456,461,462]. This has primarily been prompted by the need to evaluate critically the relative merits of SFE as an alternative to the more established methods. Richards and Campbell [456] made a comparison between SFE, Soxhlet, and sonication methods for the determination of some priority pollutants in soil. The SFE apparatus was the same, relatively standard system as described by Campbell et al. [457] with the addition of a C02 cryogenic trap to... 

Finally, toxicity (defined in terms of a standard extraction procedure followed by chemical analysis for specific substances) is a characteristic of all chemicals, whether petroleum or nonpetroleum in origin. Toxic wastes are harmful or fatal when ingested or absorbed, and when such wastes are disposed of on land, the chemicals may drain (leach) from the waste and pollute groundwater. Leaching of such chemicals from contaminated soil may be particularly evident when the area is exposed to acid rain. The acidic nature of the water may impart mobility to the waste by changing the chemical character of the waste or the character of the minerals to which the waste species are adsorbed. 

ISO 11269-1. Soil quality - Determination of the Effects of Pollutants on Soil Flora - Part 1 Method for Measurement of Inhibition of Root Growth International Organization for Standardization Geneve, 1993 9 pp. 

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