The Welcome Project
Addressing groundwater, surface water and soil contamination on large (former) industrial sites
In Europe, large
areas and regions with a high density of industry (e.g. sea ports, large scale
chemical industry complexes, metal mining areas, military complexes) suffer
from subsurface contamination. At these areas, which are referred to as megasites,
soil, surface water and groundwater are usually polluted with a mix of a wide variety of pollutants.
For megasites, redevelopment combined with a comprehensive remediation is often impossible on short
terms. Remediation costs are high, thus obstructing an economically
balanced redevelopment program. On the other hand, severe contamination in soil, surface water and groundwater can be hazardous for humans and ecosystems and limit free
use of resources like surface water, groundwater and land.
Welcome is an acronym of Water, Environment and Landscape management at COntaminated MEgasites. The goal of the WELCOME-project was to make an Integrated Management Strategy
(IMS) for Prevention and Reduction of risks at Contaminated
Industrial Megasites. This IMS is a stepwise approach that takes the present situation as a starting point. A risk assessment
that takes the soil-water system and the technical and economic feasilibity
of the remediation actions into account, form the core of this methodology.
The WELCOME-project was funded by the European Union (FP5, EESD, EVK1-CT-2001-00103)
and executed from January 2002 until December 2004. The result is an Integrated
Management Strategy for Megasites (IMS). This website presents the following subjects:
- basic strategies
of the IMS,
- a manual for technical experts and environmental managers,
- examples of the implementation
of the IMS at the Welcome megasite cases and
- an overview of the technical support tools.