Quick Dips

Managing Contaminated Sites

A new research project aims to give environmental managers the tools they need to manage the estimated 7,200 contaminated sites in New Zealand.

"Environmental managers need practical tools to assess the risks posed by these sites, and to make decisions about how to manage them," says Dr Mark Wickstrom of Landcare Research.

"The core of the [decision support system] will be an ecological risk assessment model, which we will modify to improve its suitability for New Zealand conditions," says Wickstrom.

The decision support system guides users through the model, helping them input data into the model and interpret the output from the model. The team plans to have a prototype of the decision support system up and running by June 2000. They will also develop new tools for the measurement of "ecotoxic" effects in soils and surface waters on native species of microorganisms, plants, invertebrates and fish.