title: Assessing biological indicators for remediated anthropogenic urban soils.
abstract: Anthropogenic urban soils, including brownfield soils, are currently characterised and evaluated using mainly physico-chemical properties. Our objective was to determine if biological indicators could provide a more comprehensive soil quality assessment relative to sustainability, identifying contamination issues, and effectiveness of remediation strategies. Plant, invertebrate and microbial assays and functional processes were evaluated at 10 brownfield/anthropogenic urban locations at different stages of remediation in northwest England. Extreme sites were discriminated on the basis of earthworm counts and a small number of indicators likely to be related to their activity. It was concluded that identifying a universally-applicable benchmark suite of biological indicators is very unlikely without considerable advancement of knowledge and technology.
authors.affiliation: School of Biological and Earth Sciences, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, UK. w.hartley@ljmu.ac.uk
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Hartley
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Uffindell
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Plumb
authors.forename: H A
authors.initials: HA
authors.lastname: Rawlinson
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Putwain
authors.forename: N M
authors.initials: NM
authors.lastname: Dickinson
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D044822:Biodiversity; D004739:England; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D052918:Environmental Restoration and Remediation; D007448:Invertebrates / Q000502:physiology; D063245:Plant Development; D012987:Soil; D012988:Soil Microbiology
chemical_list: D012987:Soil