Overview

Current soil and soil-materials management (risk assessment practices or regulations) is often based only on the total amount of contaminants in soil. However, total composition is inadequate for the assessment of several types of impacts such as impacts on soil, groundwater and surface water due to leaching and subsequent transport of contaminants (inorganic and organic contaminants and natural radionuclides) with water. Indeed, for many contaminants, a significant fraction of the total content is essentially non-leachable, that is to say non-removable when it comes into contact with a liquid. Thus, a key aspect to assess the possible management solutions for soil and soil materials in relation to the presence of contaminants is the release-to-the-water phase. This can be addressed with leaching tests which can be used to characterise the source term when performing impact assessment and also for the determination of a leached amount of contaminants when checking compliance with respect to existing limits or for comparison purposes (for example quality control, treatment efficiency (cleaning performance)). These statements are relevant for natural, contaminated and agricultural soils and also for soil materials. This International Standard provides guidance on the appropriate use of leaching tests on soil and soil materials in order to determine the leaching behaviour in the framework of impact assessment, or for compliance and comparison purposes. This document has been prepared by Technical Committee ISO/TC 190 "Soil quality" and has been adopted by Technical Committee CEN/TC 345 "Characterization of soils", the secretariat of which is held by NEN. The responsible German body is NA 119-01-02-05 UA "Elutionsverfahren" ("Leaching methods") of Working Committee NA 119-01-02 AA "Abfall- und Bodenuntersuchung" ("Waste and soil investigation") of the DIN Standards Committee Water Practice (NAW).

Document: references other documents

Responsible national committee

NA 119-01-02-05 UA - Leaching methods  

Responsible european committee

CEN/TC 444/WG 1 - Leaching tests  

Responsible international committee

ISO/TC 190/SC 7/WG 6 - Transfer and mobility of components