Practical Tips Document 2018 (updated August 2024)

Issue Date: June 2018

In June 2018, the Society of Brownfield Risk Assessment (SoBRA), the Geological Society Contaminated Land Group and RemSoc delivered a conference targeted towards early careers learning.  Its aims were:

  • To support technical excellence in the assessment, estimation & evaluation of risks and associated uncertainties from land affected by contaminants;
  • To encourage “good practice” in the practical application of risk assessment to support decisions regarding the appropriate management of land contamination; and
  • To facilitate and widen access to the dissemination of knowledge regarding land contamination risk assessment.

A commitment of this workshop has been the creation of a series of short tabular reports for each of the different discipline areas.  We have produced four practical tips documents which include human health risk assessment, controlled waters risk assessment, soil vapour intrusion and improving risk assessment – field to desk. The human health, controlled waters and field to desk documents have been updated in August 2024 (v2) to reflect current legislation and guidance. The vapour intrusion document is considered to be largely superseded by the SoBRA guidance notes 1A Conceptual site model development for assessment of VI contaminant linkages in the UK, 1B Benefits of soil vapour sampling for assessment of VI risks, and 1C VI data collection considerations.

Site Investigation and Risk Assessment for Historic Landfill Redevelopment (SoBRA 2016)

SoBRA held a workshop on uncertainty in human health risk assessment in June 2016. The objective of the workshop was to consider key issues associated with the CSM and site investigation for landfill sites. Delegates were asked to consider a wide range of issues to identify those representing accepted scientific understanding and/ or good practice, and those which require further work to extend, improve or clarify current understanding or practice.