CL:AIRE was delighted to attend the third annual meeting of the International Soil Reuse Forum (ISRF) in Orléans, France, hosted by BRGM. The meeting, held on 22 September, included colleagues from Grondbank and Walterre in Belgium, SIKB in the Netherlands, and guest speakers from the Canadian Environmental Land Stewardship Coalition and the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (Japan).
The ISRF aims to: foster discussions around mutual challenges, opportunities, and innovations in soil management; share good practices; explore policy developments; encourage joint problem-solving; and establish an authoritative, global voice on soil management issues to enhance recognition and advocacy.
At this year's meeting, the forum learned about BRGM's involvement in implementing the new European Soil Monitoring Law as well as SIKB's assistance in the creation of a new national Dutch database for soil and subsurface investigations. The forum also heard about a case study of contaminated soil reuse from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plan Accident. The forum discussed common themes of public perception of remediated soil across their home regions. Finally, the group had the opportunity to visit BRGM's pilot soil testing facilities as a site visit to end the conference.
Close of business for the meeting included preparing outlines for the next meeting and drafting a potential outline for a second joint communiqué, which the forum hopes to publish in the coming months. The first joint communiqué from the ISRF is available here: International Soil Reuse Forum.
SIKB will host the next meeting in the Netherlands!