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Sustainable remediation and redevelopment of brownfield sites

  • Review Article
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Abstract

Widespread pollution from industrial activities has driven land degradation with detrimental human health effects, especially in urban areas. Remediation and redevelopment of the estimated 5 million brownfield sites globally is needed to support the sustainable transition and increase urban ecosystem services, but many traditional strategies are often environmentally harmful. In this Review, we outline sustainable remediation strategies for the clean-up of contaminated soil and groundwater at brownfield sites. Conventional remediation strategies, such as dig and haul, or pump and treat, ignore secondary environmental burdens and socioeconomic impacts; over their life cycle, some strategies are more detrimental than taking no action. Sustainable remediation technologies, such as sustainable immobilization, low-impact bioremediation, new forms of in-situ chemical treatment and innovative passive barriers, can substantially reduce the environmental footprint of remediation and maximize overall net benefits. Compared with traditional methods, they can typically reduce the life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions by ~50–80%. Integrating remediation with redevelopment through nature-based solutions and sustainable energy systems could further increase the socioeconomic benefit, while providing carbon sequestration or green energy. The long-term resilience of these systems still needs to be understood, and ethics and equality must be quantified, to ensure that these systems are robust and just.

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Fig. 1: Global distribution of brownfield sites.
Fig. 2: Socioeconomic impacts of brownfields and their remediation.
Fig. 3: Brownfield remediation and redevelopment strategies.
Fig. 4: Life-cycle environmental impact of sustainable and traditional remediation technologies.
Fig. 5: Resilience of sustainable remediation approaches under changing social and geophysical conditions.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (grant no. 2020YFC1808000) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 42225703).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

    Deyi Hou & Liuwei Wang

  2. Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Abir Al-Tabbaa

  3. School of Real Estate and Land Management, Royal Agricultural University, Cirencester, UK

    David O’Connor

  4. Engineering Innovation Centre (Beijing), Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China

    Qing Hu

  5. Institute of Urban Environment (IUE), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Xiamen, China

    Yong-Guan Zhu

  6. Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Niall Kirkwood

  7. Korea Biochar Research Center, APRU Sustainable Waste Management Program & Division of Environmental Science and Ecological Engineering, Korea University, Seoul, Korea

    Yong Sik Ok

  8. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China

    Daniel C. W. Tsang

  9. UWA School of Agriculture and Environment, The University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia

    Nanthi S. Bolan

  10. School of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Institute of Foundation Engineering, Water- and Waste-Management, Laboratory of Soil- and Groundwater-Management, University of Wuppertal, Wuppertal, Germany

    Jörg Rinklebe

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Contributions

D.H. led the conceptualization, data analysis and writing of the Review. L.W. contributed to data collection. A.A.-T., D.O’C., Q.H., Y.Z., L.W., N.K., Y.S.O., D.C.W.T., N.S.B. and J.R. reviewed and edited the article.

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Correspondence to Deyi Hou.

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Nature Reviews Earth & Environment thanks P. L. Bjerg, G. Mackinnon, M.-O. Simonnot and W. G. Nissim for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary information

Glossary

Back diffusion

The contamination of a high permeability zone of groundwater aquifer by the diffusive transport of contaminants out of an adjacent low permeability zone.

Bioaugmentation

The addition of microorganisms to groundwater for contaminant degradation.

Biochar

A solid material obtained from thermochemical conversion of biomass in an oxygen-limited environment.

Biostimulation

The addition of rate-limiting nutrients to groundwater to stimulate contaminant degradation by native microorganisms.

Brownfield

Former developed sites that are derelict or underused because of potential or perceived contamination of soil and groundwater by hazardous substances.

Dig and haul

The excavation and off-site disposal process of contaminated soil, which can require pretreatment to meet land disposal restrictions.

Greenfield

An area of land that has not previously been developed.

Hydraulic control

A technique used to control the movement of contaminated groundwater.

Layered double hydroxides

A class of synthetic clay minerals with brucite-like cationic layers containing anions in the hydrated interlayer for charge balance.

Nature-based solution

Remediation strategies that are inspired and supported by nature, simultaneously providing human well-being and biodiversity benefits.

Permeable reactive barrier

A passive system for in-situ groundwater remediation, where contaminated water passes through an active material with high permeability, and contaminants are sorbed or degraded.

Phytoremediation

The use of plants to extract (phytoextraction), stabilize (phytostabilization), degrade (phytodegradation and rhizoremediation) or volatilize (phytovolatilization) contaminants either from the unsaturated soil (vadose zone) or groundwater.

Pump and treat

An ex-situ remediation system where contaminated groundwater is pumped from the subsurface, treated aboveground and discharged.

Solidification and stabilization

A remediation technology where contaminated soil is physically bound and enclosed within a solidified matrix, or chemically reacted and immobilized by the stabilizing agent.

Sustainable remediation

Remediation strategies and technologies that maximize the net environmental, social and economic benefits.

Thermal desorption

A physical process designed to remove volatile contaminants from soil via heating.

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Hou, D., Al-Tabbaa, A., O’Connor, D. et al. Sustainable remediation and redevelopment of brownfield sites. Nat Rev Earth Environ 4, 271–286 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-023-00404-1

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