It is a great pleasure to welcome you to the first ARAGORN newsletter! At this time in Europe, momentum towards securing healthy soils and biodiversity is high!
In ARAGORN we want to enable land-managers to reclaim land lost to pollution, by developing tools and processes to support the remediation and restoration of lands contaminated by groups of persistent chemicals (metals, petroleum/coal, PFAS, and organochlorine/bromine compounds (OCBs)). In doing so, we are faced with the high complexity of soils, across geological and time scales. Locally, there are always unique challenges relating to where contaminated soil connects with the terrestrial ecosystems, ground and surface water, and the human activities of food production, housing and industrial production.
Adding to this complexity, we must be aware that not only pollution, but also resource depletion, biodiversity losses, climate change – and wars – threaten terrestrial ecosystems. Another aspect of the complexity comes from soil typically being a privately owned, and the management of it influenced by local traditions and restrained by finite economic resources. Any land management will therefore need to take these aspects of local stakeholders into account, if it is to work in practice.
In ARAGORN, we aim to facilitate land-manager decision making, by designing fit-for-purpose, scientific tools and processes that integrate the multidimensionality of environmental and human risks, socio-economics and environmental resilience. Of course, tools by themselves will not be sufficient without developing processes that are critical for identifying decisions that last. This is why we in ARAGORN have a strong focus on working with communities and various stakeholders in co-creation processes, at our sites across Europe.
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