The Risk Assessment Applied to Industrially Contaminated Sites

Emissions of dangerous substances from ordinary industrial activities or industrial accidents may compromise the quality of soil and water. Indeed, industrial sites can be contaminated by a wide range of compounds, which represent a risk to the health of workers. To individuate whether the presence of contaminants represent a risk and how it is possible to remediate contaminated sites, it is necessary to apply the Risk Assessment technique. Risk assessment allows evaluation of the risk associated with the presence of contaminants, as well as remediation goals. The present chapter provides fundamentals on the risk assessment procedure applied to industrial contaminated sites. The main object is to provide a methodology to individuate contaminated sites and evaluate the remediation goals. To this aim, the main contents of the chapter are: basic concepts on contaminated sites, a description of the risk assessment method, an overview of the possible remediation techniques. Moreover, a practical exercise as well as a list of the most used software are provided.

Keywords: Contaminated sites, Industrial contamination, Remediation techniques, Remediation goals, Risk assessment, and Workers’ safety.