German Policies on Soil Protection and Remediation of Contaminated Sites

Germany as a densely populated and heavily industrialised country has a long and broad experience in handling contaminated sites. With this presentation we want to describe some main aspects of the soil protection policies and the remediation of contaminated sites in Germany. Due to the history of working on contaminated sites in Germany the Federal Soil Protection Act came into force in 1998. A lot of programmes and network in Germany and in Europe, funded by the State or the European Union, helped developing new measures and techniques for remediation and also for implementing regulations for the involved authorities. Questions like 'who is responsible？' and 'who has to pay for measurements and the remediation？' became more and more important. In the near future there will be an official European Soil Protection Policy (is expected in June 2004). Besides the contaminated sites also other soil protection policies as 'Reducing the land consumption' are pursued and an indicator is developed.and an indicator is developed.