Principles of reclaiming degraded land

There are large areas of land in the UK which have been rendered derelict by a variety of industrial activities. Dereliction from industrial processes in the UK commenced centuries ago but the rate of dereliction accelerated from the time of the Industrial Revolution (about 1750) onwards. We have a legacy of scarred landscapes resulting from industrial operations, for example wastes from coal mining, the iron and steel industries, and the mining and smelting of non-ferrous metals; toxic wastes from chemical industries; and the quarrying and digging of pits for the extraction of sand, gravel, brick- and china-clay and roadstone. The damage caused by new industries is much more closely regulated, but it was still possible to estimate that the rate of production of derelict land in Britain in 1980 was 1200–1600 hectares per year (Bradshaw and Chadwick (1980)). This figure is matched in some years by the rate of reclamation. Department of the Environment figures for 1982 indicated that over 117000 hectares of land remained derelict in England, Wales and Scotland.

The dereliction caused by different industries creates different problems for those given the task of repairing the damage, but there are some over-riding principles.