Regional risk assessment, Part II: Identification of diffuse soil contamination hotspots
Abstract
Diffuse soil contamination represents a widespread environmental issue, resulting from multiple low-intensity and spatially dispersed sources, including atmospheric deposition, agricultural practices, traffic emissions, and legacy industrial activities. Unlike point source pollution, diffuse contamination lacks a clear spatial origin, requiring methodologies that can integrate measured data with environmental processes. In this case, concentration-based mapping alone is often insufficient to support risk-informed management decisions. This study presents a regional-scale environmental risk assessment framework for diffuse soil contamination, building on the methodological advances introduced in the companion article (Part I) and extending them to spatially distributed pressures. The assessment is expanded to a multicontaminant context, including inorganic and organic compounds, and contaminant concentrations are evaluated against land use–specific regulatory threshold values. Hazard maps are normalized according to the established criterion whereby soils are considered hazardous when concentrations exceed threshold values by one order of magnitude, enabling consistent comparison and aggregation across contaminants. Exposure is modeled through four exposure pathways (groundwater, surface water, direct contact, and air dispersion), and receptor vulnerability is further articulated for groundwater resources, surface waters, protected areas, and human health. The resulting framework supports a transition from a predominantly regional human health–oriented assessment toward a more comprehensive environmental risk assessment, producing spatially explicit prioritization maps for individual contaminants and aggregated diffuse contamination risk. Application to the Toulouse metropolitan area (France) demonstrates the ability to move beyond concentration exceedances by identifying areas of higher management priority where diffuse pressures, transport processes, and receptor vulnerability converge. Implemented within a GIS-based ModelBuilder environment, the methodology is reproducible and transferable to other regions where soil data are available, but site-specific information is limited, offering a scientifically grounded basis for supporting decision makers in land use planning, monitoring and for prioritization and early-stage risk-based management actions, in line with the new European Union Soil Monitoring and Resilience Directive
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BibTeX
@article{minolfi2026regional,
title = {{Regional risk assessment, Part II: Identification of diffuse soil contamination hotspots}},
author = {Giulia Minolfi and Fabio Rosada and Elisa Giubilato and Alex Zabeo and Stéphane Belbeze and Virginie Derycke and Timo Tarvainen and Isadora Antoniano-Villalobos and Elena Semenzin and Lisa Pizzol},
journal = {Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management},
year = {2026},
month = aug,
doi = {10.1093/inteam/vjag148/8776801},
url = {https://brgm.hal.science/hal-05840967v1},
note = {CC BY-NC 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Regional risk assessment, Part II: Identification of diffuse soil contamination hotspots
AU - Giulia Minolfi
AU - Fabio Rosada
AU - Elisa Giubilato
AU - Alex Zabeo
AU - Stéphane Belbeze
AU - Virginie Derycke
AU - Timo Tarvainen
AU - Isadora Antoniano-Villalobos
AU - Elena Semenzin
AU - Lisa Pizzol
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/08/31
JO - Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management
DO - 10.1093/inteam/vjag148/8776801
UR - https://brgm.hal.science/hal-05840967v1
AB - Diffuse soil contamination represents a widespread environmental issue, resulting from multiple low-intensity and spatially dispersed sources, including atmospheric deposition, agricultural practices, traffic emissions, and legacy industrial activities. Unlike point source pollution, diffuse contamination lacks a clear spatial origin, requiring methodologies that can integrate measured data with environmental processes. In this case, concentration-based mapping alone is often insufficient to support risk-informed management decisions. This study presents a regional-scale environmental risk assessment framework for diffuse soil contamination, building on the methodological advances introduced in the companion article (Part I) and extending them to spatially distributed pressures. The assessment is expanded to a multicontaminant context, including inorganic and organic compounds, and contaminant concentrations are evaluated against land use–specific regulatory threshold values. Hazard maps are normalized according to the established criterion whereby soils are considered hazardous when concentrations exceed threshold values by one order of magnitude, enabling consistent comparison and aggregation across contaminants. Exposure is modeled through four exposure pathways (groundwater, surface water, direct contact, and air dispersion), and receptor vulnerability is further articulated for groundwater resources, surface waters, protected areas, and human health. The resulting framework supports a transition from a predominantly regional human health–oriented assessment toward a more comprehensive environmental risk assessment, producing spatially explicit prioritization maps for individual contaminants and aggregated diffuse contamination risk. Application to the Toulouse metropolitan area (France) demonstrates the ability to move beyond concentration exceedances by identifying areas of higher management priority where diffuse pressures, transport processes, and receptor vulnerability converge. Implemented within a GIS-based ModelBuilder environment, the methodology is reproducible and transferable to other regions where soil data are available, but site-specific information is limited, offering a scientifically grounded basis for supporting decision makers in land use planning, monitoring and for prioritization and early-stage risk-based management actions, in line with the new European Union Soil Monitoring and Resilience Directive
SN - 1551-3777
SN - 1551-3793
ER -