BERISP Breaking Ecotoxicological Restraints in Spatial Planning
Country: EU Projects
Start Date:           Duration: 36 months         Project Type: RTD
Contract Number: 
Organisation Type:  EC Project
Topics: 
Contaminated land-->Risk assessment-->Receptor: Ecological
Contaminated land-->Risk assessment-->Toxicological information
Diffuse pollution-->Diffuse pollution overview
Project objectives: 
BERISP aims at the development of new approaches to problems in spatial planning associated with soil contamination. North-Western Europe, with its high 
population density, faces increasing demands for open natural space. Many local authorities however, are currently confronted with problems regarding 
site development and soil pollution in for instance river floodplains and brownfields. The main objective of BERISP is the development of a Decision Support 
System (DSS), which will allow an iterative procedure in spatial planning processes, in which planner can review different types of landscape uses and habitat 
distribution against scientific knowledge on risks of pollutants for organisms.
Project Summary: 
BERISP (18) seeks to develop methods for dealing with contamination in relation to spatial planning in an international context, by ensuring compatibility 
of risk assessment methodologies between countries, for a harmonised application at the appropriate trans-national scale. Traditionally the options for 
dealing with contamination are limited: either to change the definition of the land use function (loss of prime objectives of the initial planning process) 
or remediate the contamination (requires vast budgets and is often not economically feasible). Yet this limited set of options resulting from normal risk 
assessment methodologies is due to the limited input from other disciplines relevant in spatial processes - geographers, social or economical scientists, 
and urban planners. The projects inter-disciplinary approach will gauge all relevant stakeholders in the planning process, such as farmers, inhabitants, 
and local authorities to design of a decision support system for treating polluted land. This DSS will require focussing on the hedgehog and the owl - two species 
at the top of food chain which each, in their own way, represent a different strategy for exploiting habitats.
Achieved Objectives: 
Decsion support tool available for download
Product Descriptions:
Additional Information:
Project Resources:
Weblink:
Funding Programme(s): 
INTERREG III
Link to Organisations:
Submitted by: EUGRIS Team Professor Paul Bardos  Who does what?  12/11/2008 08:47:00