Derelict Industrial Sites Research Articles

Effects of freeze-thaw action on in vivo and in vitro bioavailability of arsenic in soils from derelict industrial sites

Arsenic is a metalloid with carcinogenic properties and has been classified as a Category I carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). Freeze-thaw processes affect the migration and transformation of soil heavy metals, as well as adsorption/desorption and redox reactions. However, there is limited research directly addressing the impact of freeze-thaw processes on the bioavailability of soil heavy metals. In this study, we focused on As and selected As-contaminated soil samples from three types of legacy sites in heavy industrial areas. Under controlled freeze-thaw experimental conditions, we utilized both in vivo and in vitro bioavailability measurement methods to investigate whether and how freeze-thaw processes affect the bioavailability of soil As. The results of this study showed that freeze-thaw processes reduced soil pH (P < 0.05), CEC, SOM, and particle size, with decreases of 0.33, 1.2 cmol/kg, 5.2 g/kg, and 54 µm, respectively. It also increased weight specific surface area (BET) (P < 0.05), with an increase of 300 m2/kg. Freeze-thaw processes increased the proportions of exchangeable (P < 0.05), carbonate-bound, and iron-manganese oxide-bound As (P < 0.05), but reduced the proportions of organic-bound and residual As (P < 0.05). Freeze-thaw processes significantly increased the relative bioavailability and bioaccessibility of As, with increases of 32 ± 9.6% and 13 ± 0.23%, respectively. Soil pH, SOM, BET and electronic conductivity (EC) were identified as factors which could contribute to the increased bioavailability of As due to freeze-thaw processes. These results provide new insights and evidence for refining the assessment of human health risks associated with heavy metal contamination in polluted soils.

Culture-Led Regeneration of Industrial Brownfield Hosting Temporary Uses: A Post-Socialist Context–Case Study from Novi Sad, Serbia

Utilizing culture as a tool for the regeneration of industrial brownfields represents a fairly new trend in post-socialist Europe. This topic has garnered some academic attention; however, studies primarily originate from EU member states, whereas the examples from non-EU cities remains largely unexplored. In addition, the literature dealing with the temporary creative use of derelict industrial sites in post-socialist cities is scarce. The case study-based paper contributes to filling these voids by investigating the creativity-driven informal activation of the Kineska Quarter in Novi Sad, the second largest city in Serbia and the European Capital of Culture for 2022, and its planned transformation into a creative district. The research aims are to examine the capacity of temporary uses to act as a hard infrastructure of the culture-led regeneration, identify the policy framework that shaped the project and highlight its shortcomings, detect potential sustainability issues, and examine how soft factors affect the use of hard infrastructure. The findings suggest that the redevelopment of a creative brownfield based on the simulation of bottom-up decision-making and hastily developed and blurry regeneration policies lead to uncertainty about its sustainability. They also suggest that post-socialist cities lacking experience in this field necessitate a context-perceptive, socially responsible, and locale-conscious approach to the (then sustainable) culture-led regeneration of spontaneously activated brownfields sites, which requires meaningful and not just pro forma involvement of non-institutional actors in the policy- and decision-making process.

Detection of lateral discontinuities via surface waves analysis: A case study at a derelict industrial site

We applied a multi-offset surface wave analysis (MOPA) to detect subsoil lateral heterogeneities at a dismissed industrial site along the coast of the city of Trieste (Italy). The site is heavily contaminated and is undergoing characterization in view of possible remediation and re-use. Sea/land interactions and massive anthropic interventions make the site particularly complex. The main lateral heterogeneities consist of an extended buried quay, which also divides continental and marine sediments. We used seismic surface waves to define this contact, while also using supporting data from boreholes and geo-electrical surveys. A multi-offset phase and attenuation analysis was conducted on a few seismic lines, and produced clear evidence concerning the sought heterogeneities. Field data interpretation was corroborated also by ancillary information, and by synthetic modeling, that produced seismograms totally consistent with the recorded ones. In summary, the case study demonstrates how MOPA can be applied in a straightforward manner to define heterogeneities even at a very small spatial scale, and in complex environments such as derelict industrial sites.

From project to policy: Adaptive reuse and urban industrial land restructuring in Guangzhou City, China

How to make a better use of derelict industrial sites mostly occupied by state-owned enterprises has presented an increasing challenge to urban regeneration of many Chinese cities. Drawing from the experiences of a landmark project (Xinyi Club) in Guangzhou City, this study examines the course of adaptive reuse of an industrial land and its repercussions on reshaping the urban renewal strategy of the city. We argue that industrial land restructuring requires a pragmatic partnership of the local state with the occupiers and market players, and its flexible decision-making to overcome the constraints of regulatory institutions. Urban regeneration strategy of Chinese cities requires some fundamental transformations of the governing institutions and systems to remove the barriers against bottom-up initiatives in order to expedite the pace of redevelopment. First-mover advantage of the project proponents and the support of local government accounted for the success of the development project in this study. It may not be easily replicable because it is an outcome of exception rather than norm.

City-Tour München

The city and metropolitan region of Munich is facing continuing growth in employment and population. The city of Munich alone is expected to have 300 000 new inhabitants by the year 2035, and the larger planning region an additional 400 000 new inhabitants. Since the 1990s urban development in Munich – following the main city's strategy “compact, urban, green” – has focused on brownfield development, mainly former military barracks and railway yards. Today, available land within the existing land-use plan has become scarce. Consequently, the city of Munich launched the“Long-term Settlement Development” project in 2009. Their main strategies – densification, transformation of industrial land, and enlargement of land use at the city's municipal borders – were supposed to activate sites for housing as well as for highly mixed-use urban areas for the next five to 25 years. Eight years after the launch of that strategy, an intermediate assessment is due. Each one of the three strategies shows a specific combination of challenges for further urban development. First, densification takes place in existing neighborhoods, where people feel highly affected by densification projects, and NIMBY behavior seems to prevail. It is therefore crucial to organize a process of “give and take” between existing and new inhabitants, and their respective spatial demands. Second, transformation of derelict industrial sites has turned out to be a process that involves a so far unusual multitude of actors, where municipal authorities are but one voice in a concert of property owners, new companies, real estate investors, and other potential users. Within the strategy of increasing usable land in the land-use plan, the traditional public logic of managing large-scale urban projects confronts the restraints of partisan political interests and a related hesitancy in committing the city to balanced long-term development.

Industrial Wasteland as Faced with Contemporary Landscape Architects’ Challenges

The following article describes the problem of regeneration of industrial wasteland. It is illustrated with examples selected form various design projects created by outstanding contemporary landscape architects. It also shows how a correctly planned and performed project concerning regeneration of derelict industrial sites serves multiple functions, i. e. it serves as recreational zone as well as activates people. Moreover, it significantly enhances environmental value of a given area as well as stimulates emergence of innovative landscape investments. The paper presents innovative compositional arrangements used in creating projects concerning brownfields; balanced proportions of spatial elements, the possibility of approaching the area from different levels and perspectives and, also, the possibility of engaging fully with nature by physical contact with it.

International Real Estate Review

Incineration plants and derelict industrial sites can have a number of adverse effects on the local environment and social welfare, including the diminution of property values. Although there are many incineration plants in China, there has been relatively little research done to quantify their negative externality effects. This study therefore considers the effects of three municipal incineration plants in Hangzhou city on residential property values. Hedonic pricing modeling of 2,200 residential transactions in over 70 multifamily buildings within ten kilometers of the incineration plants over a one year period including 2014 and 2015 is carried out. Generally, the results show that the neighboring properties show decreases in the initial listing price of up to 25%, declining until the effect is gone about three kilometers from the incinerator. The most consistent losses are approximately 10% between 1-2 kilometers from the nearest incinerator. These results are comparable to similar situations in the United States and Canada.

The Effect of the Nengda Incineration Plant on Residential Property Values in Hangzhou, China

Incineration plants and derelict industrial sites can have a number of adverse effects on the local environment and social welfare, including diminution of property values. Although many incineration plants exist in China, there has been relatively little research done to estimate the negative externality affects there. In this paper, we examine the effects of the Nengda municipal incineration plant in Hangzhou city on residential property values. We employ a hedonic pricing model to examine the sales of over 500 residential condominium units in over 20 multifamily buildings within ten kilometers of the incineration plants over a one-year-period including 2014. The results show that proximate properties show decreases in initial listing price of up to 25.9%, declining monotonically until the effect is gone at three kilometers from the incinerator. These results are comparable to similar situations in the United States and Canada.

Sustainable reuse of derelict industrial area buildings – case studies in Taiwan, Japan, and Germany

The transformation of derelict industrial sites into public spaces represents a significant enhancement to the quality of life and land use, and at the same time marks a new commitment to the transformation of once-industrial sites to new cultural and environmental uses. Redevelopment of the industrial heritage has emerged in Taiwan due to the transformation of the economic system and the longing for traditional culture and local identity. Many unused industrial buildings, such as mining sites, sugar factories, wine factories and electronics factories have been involved in different types of redevelopment plans all over Taiwan. The present study evaluates three design strategies that might be used to reclaim derelict sites in urban areas transforming them for the society and the environment. Each strategy is related to different landscape characters: the heritage, the environmental and the socio-cultural characters. The objective of the present work was to analyse those design strategies used in the recla...

Comparative urban governance of developing creative spaces in China

The promotion of creativity is a crucial element in China's attempts to upgrade its economic structure. In this context, creative spaces, located in derelict industrial sites, have become prominent symbols of China's so-called Second Transition (Bottelier, 2007). The basic hypothesis of this paper claims that the development of these sites not only implies a restructuring of inner city brownfields, but also new modes of urban governance. Altogether eight creative spaces in China will be compared over time. The empirical research is based on qualitative interviews and an extensive evaluation of policy documents. This paper argues that the governance of creative spaces can be described as a path from informal experiments at the local micro-level to the development of a comprehensive toolset of mainstream policies at the municipal level. This happened in face of the shifting acknowledgment of creative industries from the national level. Consequently, Beijing and Shanghai became spearheads regarding the legalization of creative spaces. This paper further shows that within the institutional milieu of creative spaces, the local state acts as a very pragmatic key decision maker. In conclusion, the local state plays several decisive roles in the course of the development of creative spaces: a transformer of land use rights, a regulator in developing a legislative framework, a mediator between former operator and real estate developer, an investor and distributor of public funds, a supervisor and manager of the local economic development and last but not least a supervisor of creative spaces.

Industrial Heritage and Place Identity in Spain: From Monuments to Landscapes*

.In Spain, the birth of interest in the nation's industrial heritage dates from the 1980s and occurred alongside the process of deindustrialization. Policies concerning derelict industrial sites have shifted gradually from destruction to preservation, rehabilitation, and enhancement, and industrial heritage enhancement projects are now widespread in the country. However, a clear mismatching has arisen between institutional and academic initiatives and local communities, which exhibit widespread disinterest in or even rejection of industrial remains. This problematic situation can be related to the utilization of industrial heritage as an economic resource without paying much attention to its connections with memory and identity. Also, the mismatching is due to a positivist approach to industrial heritage whereby the monument and the museum are prioritized. We argue that projects which consider industrial remains as part of cultural landscapes might shorten the gap between the institutional and economic side of industrial heritage and its identity‐building and popular facets.

Ways of Increasing Property Values in Degraded Urban Areas: Projects Implemented in Pécs, Hungary

Property prices are extremely low in extensive degraded urban areas. Enhancing property values in these areas is a foremost concern for both property owners and for the town as a whole. The aim is to transform isolated, disadvantaged urban areas; to increase property prices so that they reach the level of average property prices in the town, thus giving way to the development and revitalization of these deprived neighborhoods. The paper will describe the urban areas in question (housing estates, industrial areas, underused urban areas) and the methods used by the local government. They include strategically located important public buildings, renewing public spaces and parks, regenerating derelict industrial sites. Most of these projects have been implemented within the Pecs 2010 European Capital of Culture programs.

Re-use of derelict industrial sites: Opportunities for regeneration of industrial heritage in Pancevo, Serbia

Subject of the paper is industrial heritage and its regeneration. Emphasis has been put on industrial objects that have lost their primary function and now have historical, social and architectural value. Condition and problems of industrial heritage were discussed through the example of Pancevo, one of the first and biggest industrial cities in Serbia. Aim was to examine the current policy and practice in redevelopment and investigate in which way and to what extent can good examples from the international practice be applied to Pancevo. Findings of the research are given through set of recommendations, discussed through four themes: 1) culture-led regeneration - development of cultural activities in former industrial buildings, 2) industrial heritage as a tool for improving the ecological image of the city, 3) industrial heritage as a potential for development of tourism, 4) heritage as a potential for economic development. Value of paper lies in drawing attention on significance of the industrial heritage and problem of its dereliction, and investigation of application of international models on Serbian situation. As one of the biggest industrial cities in the region, Pancevo can serve as a model not only for Serbia, but also for cities in other countries that are in similar situation.

Ground Gas Handbook

Emissions of toxic gases are expected to be encountered in a variety of geologic settings, for example: (1) engineered waste disposal sites, which are nominally required to incorporate design measures for capture and control; (2) all manner of dumps and other un-engineered and/or uncontrolled waste disposal sites; (3) derelict industrial sites and their plant and off-plant dump and discharge points; and (4) certain natural bodies, in particular, shallow oil fields, or deposits of toxic mineral compounds formed and/or released during the geologic history of the site. Geologists, therefore, are the natural choice for the professional needed to predict and discover these ground gas situations worthy of constant environmental consideration. These gases emanate as volatile releases from toxic compounds, natural or man-made, under conditions of vapor-pressure release (i.e., volatilization) and are subject to release under changing geochemical conditions, most often due to contact with perched or vadose groundwater. Some of these releases occur along geologic pathways of transport, while others constitute near-direct transmission into various “confined spaces” frequented by unsuspecting human receptors. What the Book Offers Considering the over-riding geologic parameters related to generation and release of toxic gases, this book can be useful, in a practical sense, for geoscience professionals involved in all aspects of waste-management facility design, construction, and compliance, and/or in the remediation of uncontrolled hazardous waste sites. The content of the book will not tax the reader's capacity to understand or to act upon the contents; the reader will merely need to discover how to integrate their own “needs.” The professional backgrounds of the …

Hope and Rust: Reinterpreting the Industrial Place in the Late 20th Century (review)

Reviewed by: Hope and Rust: Reinterpreting the Industrial Place in the Late 20th Century Tim Edensor (bio) Hope and Rust: Reinterpreting the Industrial Place in the Late 20th Century. By Anna Storm. Stockholm: Royal Institute of Technology, 2008. Pp. 214. Available online at http://www.diva-portal.org/kth/theses/. In the last four decades, as deindustrialization has accelerated across Europe, an abundance of initially derelict industrial sites has provided a legacy through which to reconsider the industrial past. Although they were often vilified as realms of dirt and danger, a gaggle of archaeologists, historians, urban planners, tourist marketers, and architects have collectively ensured that such sites now often serve as markers of heritage, symbols of local identity that are worthy of preservation and interpretation. In Hope and Rust, Anna Storm shows how these diverse actors have battled over vacated industrial places, offering changing and diverse regeneration schemes. In carrying out this project, she tracks the changing meanings, tastes, and uses that have centered on these old factories, mines, and warehouses, and she offers a timely account about how this re-use and reinterpretation has its own history. These urban transformations have come so quickly that it can be difficult to come to terms with the reconfigured environments that emerge. In the Marxian sense, that solid epitome of modernity, the factory, has suddenly been turned into air; such places no longer produce tangible manufactures [End Page 230] but rather concepts, ideas, aesthetics, and place-images, or else they house offices or dwellings at variance to their original function. The astonishing capacity of capitalism to discover new markets and create new commodities in such places consequently defamiliarizes sites that were habitually worked in or unreflexively passed during everyday routines. The site featured in Hope and Rust is the former ironworks in the Swedish town of Avesta, a well-chosen example at which numerous shifts in regeneration policies highlight the changing approaches to conservation, use, and interpretation that Storm is concerned to depict. A finely grained study of the various actors, policies, and influences over three decades at Avesta succeeds in highlighting the fluid, processual characteristics of heritage reinterpretation as it is contested and transformed at one symbolic heritage site. Storm avoids overgeneralizations by emphasizing that the reinterpretation of industrial sites invariably takes place in local contexts, under their own historical, political, and cultural conditions. Yet she also highlights the transcontinental trends which circulate through places. Here, the actors interested in regenerating Avesta are influenced by policies devised for the reinterpretation of other sites of iron and steel production—at Ironbridge in England and at the Landschaftspark in Duisburg, Germany—while simultaneously attempting to ensure that it is distinguished from them. More broadly, this process of adoption and adaptation, or disembedding and reembedding, underscores how places are increasingly constituted out of their relations with elsewhere, through the people, ideas, commodities, forms of transport, and money which flow through them. A key argument is that developments such as the one at Avesta are founded on the production of new commodified space in the form of apartments, condos, offices, or heritage attractions, and that, furthermore, this is broadcast as an optimistic symbol of future prosperity. Yet such gentrification is conceived of as ambiguous, for it may result in the opening up of industrial spaces that were previously out of reach for most people, bringing them back into (semi) public space. Contestations also focus on the aesthetics of conservation. Should a patina which testifies to former industrial use be maintained, “improved,” or cleansed, replaced by a smooth, sandblasted surface? Should selective traces of work be preserved or obliterated? At Avesta, a row of iron girders and a former interior gable, exposed and “showing a multiplicity of colours and patterns originating from earlier floor levels, a staircase and partition” (p. 70) were retained to provide (recently revealed) signs of the past, replete with arresting textures and form. These aesthetics were later contested, however, by those who believed they confounded an image of regeneration and potential future vitality, and they were removed. This re-aestheticization of place draws in new ways of valuing things and places and carries the threat that places with difficult histories might be...

Applying landscape ecological principles in urban environments

Urban dwellers have long been interested in theinteractions between humans and nature. Already100 years ago concerns were raised about the fate ofurban flora in the rapidly expanding city of Helsinkiin Finland (Brenner 1906), but ecologists largelyignored urban areas for most of the twentieth century(Grimm et al. 2008). Lack of research has resulted inecology contributing little to solving urban environ-mental problems or providing understanding forplanning and management (Niemela¨ 1999; Grimmet al. 2008).Systematic urban ecological research started onlyabout 50 years ago. Berlin in Germany was one of thefirst cities to be studied comprehensively (Scholz1956), and urban ecological research has its longesttraditions in Central Europe and the UK (Sukopp2008). More recently, similar surge of interest hastaken place across the world. For instance, the journalLandscape Ecology has recently published numerouspapers on urban landscape ecology. With the expan-sion of cities worldwide, knowledge of the ecology ofcities integrated with social science approaches toguide the development of sustainable cities isurgently needed (Wu 2008; Grimm et al. 2008).From an ecological perspective, cities are uniquemosaics of sites which are constructed for residential,commercial, industrial, and infrastructural purposes,interspersed with green spaces. Urban green spacesare diverse, and include, for instance, parks, gardensand recreation venues. In addition to these formalgreen spaces, cities include informal green space,consisting of remnants of less modified, indigenousvegetation types, as well as specific urban habitats,such as derelict industrial sites, overgrown gardens,and ruderal sites (Breuste 2003). This mosaic ofhabitats can be fruitfully studied and understoodusing landscape ecology as a framework (Wu 2008).Landscape ecology provides approaches and meth-ods for understanding the dynamics of urban greenspaces. Urban habitat patches are small and isolatedfrom each other by a matrix of built environment.Ecological theories that have been used to examinesuch ‘‘archipelagoes’’ of urban green spaces includeisland biogeography theory (MacArthur and Wilson1967). The findings of several urban studies (e.g.,Klausnitzer 1993) of a positive relationship betweenpatch size and species richness suggest that the theoryof island biogeography could be an appropriateframework for urban ecological research as a first

Spaces of utopia and dystopia: landscaping the contemporary city

Some of the most recent literature within urban studies gives the distinct impression that the contemporary city now constitutes an intensely uneven patchwork of utopian and dystopian spaces that are, to all intents and purposes, physically proximate but institutionally estranged. For instance, so–called edge cities (Garreau, 1991) have been heralded as a new Eden for the information age. Meanwhile tenderly manicured urban villages, gated estates and fashionably gentrified inner–city enclaves are all being furiously marketed as idyllic landscapes to ensure a variety of lifestyle fantasies. Such lifestyles are offered additional expression beyond the home, as renaissance sites in many downtowns afford city stakeholders the pleasurable freedoms one might ordinarily associate with urban civic life. None–the–less, strict assurances are given about how these privatized domiciliary and commercialized ‘public’ spaces are suitably excluded from the real and imagined threats of another fiercely hostile, dystopian environment ‘out there’. This is captured in a number of (largely US) perspectives which warn of a ‘fortified’ or ‘revanchist’ urban landscape, characterized by mounting social and political unrest and pockmarked with marginal interstices: derelict industrial sites, concentrated hyperghettos, and peripheral shanty towns where the poor and the homeless are increasingly shunted. Our paper offers a review of some key debates in urban geography, planning and urban politics in order to examine this patchwork–quilt urbanism, In doing so, it seeks to uncover some of the key processes through which contemporary urban landscapes of utopia and dystopia come to exist in the way they do.

The geography of the Estuary and Firth of Clyde

SynopsisThe relative resource value and use of the Estuary and Firth of Clyde have varied through time. Until the eighteenth century the estuary was difficult to navigate. The firth, with its rich fishing grounds and sheltered harbours, was the focus of early settlement. However, increasing trade with the Americas, larger ships and growing competition between Glasgow and the more accessible ports of Greenock and Dumbarton stimulated plans to improve the navigability of the estuary. This was achieved by deepening and widening the main channel, a process which continued as the size of ships increased and more sophisticated techniques of river improvement developed. Within a century and a half the bed of the estuary was transformed from an obstacle to navigation into a major water-route, from which the largest passenger liners in the world were launched.Since the Second World War the relative resource values of the estuary and the firth have changed with the increase in air travel, the decline of ship building and heavy industry on the Clyde, and the increase in the size of cargo vessels. The economic focus shifted from the estuary to the natural, deepwater harbours of the firth.At present redevelopment of derelict docklands and industrial sites along the estuary is taking place, while the firth is suffering from the effects of economic recession. Planning is now being increasingly directed toward the development of the amenity, recreational and tourist potential of both the estuary and the firth.

Conservation and creation of wildlife habitats on industrial land in Greater Manchester

Several derelict industrial sites in the Greater Manchester area of north-west England are of regional ecological importance and numerous others have significant biological value. Similar findings are being made elsewhere in Britain. This indicates that ecological surveys should be a vital part of reclamation-site investigations and the planning of after-uses should take full account of wildlife interests. Existing features of biological importance on derelict industrial sites have arisen accidentally through, for example, haphazard tipping of wastes followed by natural colonization. Examples are the lime floras of alkali wastes and orchidiferous communities on power station ash, which both contain regionally rare and local plants. Recent studies of these man-made habitats suggest that new habitats can actually be planned and constructed by altering the landform, placing materials to provide different substrates, pH control by liming, changing the fertility by nutrient additions, draining to provide wet or dry habitats and using indigenous plant species to increase species richness. Careful design of reclamation schemes can, where appropriate, realize the potential for the protection and creation of habitats of high wildlife interest and amenity value. This also applies to the planning of new industrial developments, particularly those involving waste disposal and mineral extraction. Wildlife uses have the advantage of being inexpensive, with minimal after-management commitments.

Factors involved in the reclamation and redevelopment of derelict industrial sites

Abstract The hazards associated with disused industrial sites in relation to their potential for reclamation and redevelopment have been discussed with particular reference to derelict gas works. Examples of the nature and degree of chemical contamination of industrial sites, chemical attack on building materials and public health risks have been given and suitable after uses for reclaimed sites have been discussed.