Land contamination can pose risks to buildings in a number of ways. Volatile contaminants and gases can accumulate and cause explosion or fire. Foundations and buried services can be damaged by corrosive substances and contaminants such as steel slags can create unstable ground conditions through expansion causing structural damage.

• Performance of Building Materials in Contaminated Land, BR255. BRE, 1994. (INFO-RA2-6a)
• Risks of Contaminated Land to Buildings, Building Materials and Services: A Literature Review. Technical Report P331. EA, 2000. (INFO-RA2-6b) (PDF, 464KB)
• Assessment and Management of Risks to Buildings, Building Materials and Services from Land Contamination. Technical Report P5 035/TR/01. EA, 2001. (INFO-RA2-6c) (PDF, 10.5MB)
• Approved document C - Site preparation and resistance to contaminants and moisture. ODPM, 2010 (INFO-RA2-6d) (PDF, 2.7MB)
• Designing Drains and Sewers for Brownfield Sites, British Plastics Federation, 2018. (PDF, 450KB)
• Invasive Weed Control Technical Document Library - Property Care Association

ERA framework

The framework offers a series of tiered activities, decisions and actions that provide a practical match between available resources and the severity of a land contamination problem. It allows decisions to be made rationally, consistently and transparently and forms the basis for discussions between the relevant parties (these may include: site owners, regulatory authorities and the local community).

• Main report: An ecological risk assessment framework for contaminants in Soil (SC070009/SR1) (PDF, 6.8MB) - September 2008
• Summary: ecological risk assessment (PDF, 57KB) - October 2008

ERA guidance

• Assessing Risks to Ecosystems from Land Contamination. R&D Technical Report P299. EA, 2002. (INFO-RA2- 5a) (PDF, 8MB)
• Review of Sublethal Ecotoxicological Tests for Measuring Harm in Terrestrial Ecosystems, P5-063/TR1. EA, 2002. (INFO-RA2-5b) (PDF, 10MB)
• Ecological Risk Assessment, R&D Technical Report P5-069/TR1. EA, 2003. (INFO-RA2-5c) (PDF, 600KB) - Dec 2003
• Soil Screening Values for use in Ecological Risk Assessment R&D Technical Report P5-091/TR. EA, 2004. (INFO-RA2-5d) (PDF, 707KB)
• Guidance on desk studies and conceptual site models for ecological risk assessment (PDF, 7MB) - October 2008
• Guidance on the use of Soil Screening Values for Ecological Risk Assessment (PDF, 6.3MB) - October 2008
• Guidance on the use of Bioassays in Ecological Risk Assessment (PDF, 6.3MB) - October 2008
• Guidance on the attribution of Cause and Effect in Ecological Risk Assessment (PDF, 6KB) - October 2008
• Guidance on the use of Ecological Surveys in Ecological Risk Assessment (PDF, 6.4MB) - October 2008
• Soil Screening Values for Assessing Ecological Risk: Summary - (PDF, 134KB) - November 2017
• Derivation and Use of Soil Screening Values for Assessing Ecological Risk: Report - (PDF, 1.15MB) - November 2017
• Soil Screening Values for Assessing Ecological Risk: Tool - (MS Excel Spreadsheet) - November 2017

CL:AIRE

Land contamination can affect the health of people living, working, visiting or otherwise present on a site. The risk assessment process is used to establish whether there is an unacceptable risk to humans.

Contaminated Land Exposure Assessment (CLEA)

• Human health toxicological assessment of contaminants in soil (Science Report Final SC050021/SR2) (PDF, 718KB)
  This report describes the technical principles and framework the EA use to derive Health Criteria Values.
• Updated technical background to the CLEA model (Science Report Final SC050021/SR3) (PDF, 1.60MB)
  This report describes the technical background to the CLEA model. It also sets out the underlying assumptions that the EA have made to predict exposure for three standard land use scenarios (residential, allotments and commercial).
• Environment Agency Science Reports relevant to CLEA

CLEA Software and Handbook

• CLEA software v 1.071
• CLEA software v 1.06
• CLEA Licence Agreement
• CLEA handbook v 1.05

  The CLEA software version 1.05 handbook is still relevant to version 1.06 and 1.071 and has not been changed.

Toxicological Reports (TOX) (INFO-RA2-2d)

• TOX Reports for SGV derivation

Soil Guideline Values (SGVs) (INFO-RA2-2e)

• Soil Guideline Values
• Published SGVs

Category 4 Screening Levels (C4SL)

• Category 4Screening Levels (C4SLs)

Generic Screening Values (GAC)

• EIC/AGS/CL:AIRE Generic Assessment Criteria (GAC)
• LQM/CIEH S4UL 
• SoBRA: Development of Generic Assessment Criteria for Assessing Vapour Risks to Human Health from Volatile Contaminants in Groundwater

Bioaccessibility

• Measurement of Bioaccessibility of Arsenic in UK Soils, P5-062/TR02, EA, 2002.(PDF, 72KB) (INFO-RA2-2f)
• International workshop on the potential use of bioaccessibility testing in risk assessment of land contamination, Science Report SC040054, 2005
• In-vitro Bioaccessisbility Testing: Current Science and Way Forward. Environment Agency Science Update 2, 2007
• Environment Agency views on using in vitro bioaccessibility data in land contamination risk assessments for human health, June 2007
• Additional bioaccessibility references are available from Science Reports relevant to CLEA

General Information 

• Method for Deriving Site-specific Human Health Assessment Criteria for Contaminants in Soils, LQ01, SNIFFER, SEPA, EA, 2003. (INFO-RA2-2g)
• Human Health Risk Assessment – Detailed Quantitative Risk Assessment, EA (No report produced). (INFO-RA2-2h)
• The UK Approach for Evaluating the Human Health Risks from Petroleum Hydrocarbons in Soils EA, 2005 (PDF, 536KB)

TPH Working Group Series (TPHCWG) - Available through AEHS Foundation Online Store

• Petroleum Hydrocarbon Analysis of Soil and Water in the Environment, Volume 1, TPHCWG, 1998. (INFO-RA2-2i)
• Composition of Petroleum Mixtures, Volume 2, TPHCWG, 1998. (INFO-RA2-2j)
• Selection of Representative TPH Fractions Based on Fate and Transport Considerations, Volume 3, TPHCWG, 1997. (INFO-RA2-2k)
• Development of Fraction-specific Reference Doses (RfDs) and Reference Concentrations (RfCs) for TPHs, Volume 4, TPHCWG, 1997. (INFO-RA2-2l)
• Human Health Risk-based Evaluation of Petroleum Release Sites: Implementing the Working Group’s Approach, Volume 5, TPHCWG, 1999. (INFO-RA2-2m)

Contaminated Land Reports (CLR) - All withdrawn

• CLR7 Overview of the Development of Guideline Values and Related Research, DEFRA/EA, 2002. (INFO-RA2-2a) Withdrawn.
• CLR8 Priority Contaminants Report, DEFRA/EA, 2020.Withdrawn.
• CLR9 Contaminants in Soils: Collation of Toxicological Data and Intake Values for Humans. Consolidated Main Report, CLR 9 DEFRA/EA, 2002. (INFO-RA2-2b). The Environment Agency completely re-wrote the old CLR9 report (now called the Human health toxicological assessment of contaminants in soil (Science Report Final SC050021/SR2)) to take account of Defra's ‘Way Forward’ exercise on Soil Guideline Values and other changes to the underlying science.
• CLR 10 The Contaminated Land Exposure Assessment Model (CLEA): Technical Basis and Algorithms. DEFRA/EA, 2002. (INFO-RA2-2c). This has been withdrawn and rewritten as CLEA.

Land contamination can affect groundwater, freshwater and coastal waters. Groundwater is particularly vulnerable to contamination as it underlies many sites and is difficult to clean up once polluted.

CIRIA

• Contaminated Land Risk Assessment. A guide to good practice (C552). CIRIA. 2001.

CONCAWE

• Environmental fate & effects of poly and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). Report No. 8/16. Concawe. 2016.

CL:AIRE

• Petroleum Hydrocarbons in Groundwater: Guidance on assessing petroleum hydrocarbons using existing hydrogeological risk assessment methodologies. CL:AIRE, 2017.
• An Illustrated Handbook of LNAPL Transport and Fate in the Subsurface. CL:AIRE, 2014. (PDF, 16.7MB)
• RB 08 - Modelling approaches for assessing risks associated with petroleum hydrocarbon spills in the UK Chalk aquifer (2009)
• TB 11 - A practical guide to investigating DNAPL releases in the subsurface (2004)
• TB 15 - Accounting for the groundwater-surface water interface in contaminated land assessments (2011)

Department of the Environment

• CLR 1, A Framework for Assessing the Impact of Contaminated Land on Groundwater and Surface Water. DoE, 1994. Volume 1 (PDF, 35MB) (INFO-RA2-3a)
• CLR1, A Framework for Assessing the Impact of Contaminated Land on Groundwater and Surface Water. DoE 1994 Volume 2 (PDF, 35MB) (INFO-RA2-3a)

Environment Agency

• Groundwater protection: Principles and practice (GP3) EA 2012 - Superseded
• The Environment Agency's Approach to Groundwater Protection (GP3) EA 2017 v1.0
• Guidance on the Assessment and Interrogation of Subsurface Analytical Contaminant Fate and Transport Models, NC/99/38/1 EA, 2002 (PDF, 151MB) (INFO-RA2-3d)
• Methodology for the Derivation of Remedial Targets for Soil and Groundwater to Protect Water Resources, R&D Publication 20. EA, 1999. (INFO-RA2-3c) - Superseded
• Remedial Targets Methodology: Hydrogeological Risk Assessment for Land Contamination, 2006 (PDF, 107KB)
• User manual v3.1 (PDF, 99KB)
• Hydrogeological risk assessment for land contamination: Remedial targets Worksheet v3.2 (Excel, 714KB)

  The Remedial targets worksheet was updated by the Environment Agency in January 2013. This was to correct a formatting error on the level 3 groundwater sheet. In the Domenico Steady state mode - the ‘half life for degradation of contaminant in water’ box was blacked out despite being used in the calculations. The resulting default figure was not conservative. Version 3.2 is the updated version.

• Land Contamination Groundwater Compliance Points: Quantitative Risk Assessments, EA, March 2017 (gov.uk web page)
• Environment Agency Technical Advice to Third Parties on Pollution of Controlled Waters for Part 2A of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, No 07/02. EA, 2002. (INFO-RA2-3e)
• ConSim (Release 2): Contamination Impact on Groundwater: Simulation by Monte Carlo Method. EA, 2003. (INFO-RA2-3f)
• An Illustrated Handbook of DNAPL Transport and Fate in the Subsurface, R&D Publication 133. EA, 2004. (PDF, 788KB) (INFO-RA2-3g)
• Piling and Penetrative Ground Improvement Methods on Land Affected by Contamination: Guidance on Pollution Prevention. NC99/73. EA, 2001.
• Piling into Contaminated Sites, EA, 2002.
• Piling in Layered Ground: Risks to Groundwater and Archaeology, Science Report SC020074/SR, 2006 (PDF 6.86MB)
• Potential groundwater pollutants from cemeteries, EA, SCHO1204BIKR-E-P, ISBN: 1 84432 347 1, December 2004
   
• Potential groundwater pollutants from cemeteries, EA - One page summary
• Pollution Potential of Cemeteries - Draft Guidance, EA, R&D Technical report P223, ISBN: 1 85705 021 5, 2002
• AMENDMENT to ‘Pollution potential of cemeteries’- R&D P223, EA, March 2004
• Assessing the Groundwater Pollution Potential of Cemetery Developments, EA, SCHO0404BGLA-E-P, April 2004

SEPA

• Guidance on Assessing the Impacts of Cemeteries on Groundwater, SEPA, LUPS GU 32, V3, dated 24/09/2015