Background levels of contaminants in soils in Scotland

Prompted by growing concerns about man’s impact on the environment and environmental impacts on man, many national governments and international agencies are developing policies to protect land and water quality. In the UK, some of the main legislative drives are the Government targets for sustainable development, which focus on the re-use of Brownfield sites for 60% of new residential homes. Whilst this policy protects green belts around urban environments, Brownfield sites include land that may or may not be contaminated with chemical substances that are potentially harmful to life. Although links between long term human health effects and potentially harmful substances (PHSs) are often difficult to prove, the majority of regulatory authorities adopt a precautionary principal approach to legislate against high environmental concentrations of PHSs.