Sustainable restoration and long-term management of contaminated rural, urban and industrial ecosystems

Abstract

To sustain acceptable living and working conditions in areas contaminated by radioactivity, robust and effective restoration strategies need to consider different types of environment, land use and ways of life. The allocation of resources must take account of a range of requirements to ensure sustainable use, including social and ethical aspects, environmental considerations and quality of life. Current understanding of public perceptions and communication of technical information also needs to be integrated into the process so that the radiological situation is fully explained and any remediation measures are transparent to, and agreed by, affected populations. Many individual countermeasures have been developed and tested. Previously, the focus has been on evaluating their effectiveness, with some attention to cost. The current STRATEGY project aims to establish a more holistic decision framework for the selection of optimal remediation strategies for long-term sustainable management of contaminated areas. An initial step within this approach is a detailed evaluation of individual countermeasures; examples of which are provided here for an agricultural and urban countermeasure.