Ecological soil guidelines

Eco-SGV (Ecological soil guideline value) tools project

Members of the Regional Council Contaminated Land and Waste Special Interest Group with support from the Land Monitoring and Land Managers Forums have been championing the development of methods and guidelines to develop New Zealand Ecological Soil Guideline Values (Eco-SGV’s) for a range of contaminants. 

These values assist in protecting terrestrial biota (soil microbes, invertebrates, plants, wildlife and livestock) and provide a useful way to readily assess potential environmental impacts of discharges to land and contaminated site management.

Dr Jonathan Caldwell of Waikato Regional Council explains that these tools are important to provide a consistent methodology which takes into account natural background levels and can be used by all regional and territorial authorities.  “The Ministry for the Environment identified this work as an important gap in the contaminated land management policy framework in 2007 and the work really gained momentum in 2014 when we were able to secure an Envirolink Tools Project Grant to engage Dr Jo-Anne Cavanagh from Landcare Research to undertake three key pieces of work”.  This work produced three comprehensive reports:

• Background soil concentrations of selected trace elements and organic contaminants in New Zealand. This report is available here >> [PDF, 4.2 MB]
• Development of soil guideline values for the protection of Eco-SGV’s – Technical document. View this report here >> [PDF, 3.8 MB]
• Background soil concentrations and soil guideline values for the protection of ecological receptors (Eco-SV’s) – Consultation User Guide. View this report here >> [PDF, 1.2 MB]

“Given the complexity and “newness” of this work in New Zealand, we collectively decided (with the support of Landcare Research) that it would be beneficial to commission a peer review of the work”.  This was undertaken utilising an Envirolink Medium Advice Grant and you can find the report here >> [PDF, 5.8 MB]

Jonathan says that the peer review process was extremely valuable and will help promote the uptake of the guidelines as a national tool.  “It highlighted how the guidelines could be taken further and has enabled us to update the original reports and incorporate some new guidance on methodologies coming through from the OECD”.

Jonathan adds that the next step is to continue to work with the Ministry for the Environment to seek national endorsement of these guidelines to support their uptake, use and application by all territorial and regional authorities.