Integrated environmental management of land and soil in European urban areas

During the last 10 years the urban land and soil management issues have been the subject of various research and application projects in the Institute for Ecology of Industrial Areas, presenting both the diagnoses and solutions aiming at improving the situation in this respect. The projects dealt with issues in European countries in general, but especially in Central European countries, facing problems related to the still existing heritage of the last decades, to which common European problems in this field should be added. The chapters below show the results of the projects which have been implemented during the last 10 years in IETU. Various aspects of sustainable land management are presented in the projects financed by the INTERREG Programme for Central Europe which include solutions in methodology, tools and instruments supporting land management in urban areas. Results of other projects on the analysis and assessment of negative effects of unsustainable land management in urban areas consisting in using forest and agricultural land for other purposes are also presented. Degraded post-industrial sites are an important part of urban areas in many European cities. The methods and tools for managing these sites are presented, including remediation methods and health risk assessment methods which support decision making in management and use of these types of sites. Some aspects of waste management and air quality in urban areas have also been presented as an important element of urban space quality and the life comfort of the inhabitants. It should be stressed that in all cases land and soil are perceived as a resource which needs protection and reasonable use like other environmental resources. Therefore, in all of these projects, the tools and methods of environmental management have been applied to the field of land use planning and management. This alliance of environmental resources management with land use planning and management is the key idea promising the future improvement in making urban areas better for living.