I would like you let you know about a Summer School being hosted on 16-20 June 2014 at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) in Leipzig, Germany. The event is organised by ADVOCATE, LIAISE & TIMBRE.
PURPOSE
The European Environment Agency has identified 250,000 sites with contaminated soil and another 160,000 with contaminated groundwater. And with many thousands more sites as yet undiscovered, the cost of 'losing' all of this land is huge. So how should decisions to remediate, re-purpose, or neglect a contaminated site be made? This summer school will develop innovative answers to these complex issues using quantitative, crossdisciplinary tools and analysis. Participants will be able to:
• Handle uncertainty in scientific data
• Collect and analyse qualitative risk-perception data
• Evaluate both the social and environmental cost of re-purposing contaminated land
• Effectively present data to stakeholders
APPROACH
The summer school develops the fundamental building blocks of site management (handling scientific uncertainty) to cover decision making at the local scale (public understanding of risk) and regional scale (constructive conflict resolution). Scenarios covered emphasise innovative options such as the cost of re-using brownfields for energy production. With a hands-on approach that includes modelling tutorials and a visit to a remediation site, participants will be challenged to use scientific and socio-economic data to develop sustainable site administration plans. The course is organised as a series of group exercises, which will culminate each group presenting their site management proposal to the school.
