WELCOME PriCon - Defining Priority Contaminants in the characterisation of megasites

In Europe, large areas and regions exist with a high density of industry (e.g. sea ports, large scale chemical industry complexes, metal mining areas, military complexes, etc.). In these megasites, soil and groundwater are usually polluted with different classes of pollutants. The PriCon tool has been developed for the determination and selection of priority contaminants at megasites. The selection of priority contaminants can be done for several different areas or sub-areas of a megasite providing for a quick overview of the relevant contaminants in view of the megasite management. The introduced assessment approach for contaminants at sites allows for a systematic and comparable assessment of a large number of contamination hot spots with regard to their emissions into the groundwater. The basis of this approach is a definite reduction of all measured contaminants to substances, which allow for a scientific-supported, site-specific and efficient risk assessment of sites. The principles of the approach imply the following main assessment and calculation steps: - Detection of all relevant contaminants by representative site investigation - Assessment of these contaminants with regard to their toxicological potential for different exposure scenarios - Combination of respective physiochemical substance characteristics to quantify their mobility, retardation and accumulation.