Brownfields : Prevention, Assessment, Rehabilitation and Development of Brownfield Sites - v. 5

Brownfields 2010 follows the success of the first four conferences in this series held in Cadiz (2002), Siena (2004), Tallinn (2006) and Cephalonia (2008).

The meeting provides an international forum to discuss the problems facing the public and private sectors, the engineering and scientific communities in terms of the land available for development purposes. The demand for development land has led to the reuse of properties that have been abandoned for a variety of reasons.

Many of them are brownfield sites which have deteriorated in different ways, including by contamination.

These sites are usually a burden in terms of economic losses and contribute to the deterioration of the quality of life of entire neighbourhoods.

They create enormous social problems in addition to severe land, soil and habitat degradation.

The rehabilitation and redevelopment of brownfields and derelict land in general is one of the first priorities of environmental and spatial planning.

The main objective for these sites is to find appropriate new uses and activities, taking into account their economic and social acceptability. Rehabilitation of brownfields, particularly those which are contaminated, can be an expensive undertaking and requires not only technical solutions but the involvement of financial, regulatory and community stakeholders.

Fundamental to this process is the analysis of the risks involved and the development of appropriate strategies.

These need to be weighted against the economic and social benefits of brownfield development, to assess the general viability of the redevelopment.

In most cases the demand for development land drives the process forward, while sometimes the rehabilitation is grounded on the wish to restore the landscape and the ecology of a region. Brownfield development is in many cases essential to attract new business to the locality and for the creation of healthy communities.

Therefore, there is a great need for deeper research and study of all aspects of the problem - technical, institutional, financial, social - and an exchange of ideas, know-how and experience among experts and scientists.