Special Session on Soil Contamination

For about two centuries, the rapid industrialization and associated demographic growth have led to increased environmental contamination related to human activities. Enriching in various element content or organic compounds released by various anthropic activities like mining, smelting or other industrial
activities, can lead to persistent pollution in soil even after the exploitation has ceased. The environment is then exposed to the transfer and dissemination of contaminants causing water and soil contamination and loss of biodiversity. Depending on their toxicity and persistence in the environment, contaminants canalter the physical, chemical and biological properties of soils and ecosystem. Over the last decades, promising solutions based on remote sensing have emerged formonitoring contaminant impacts on soils and plants, from field to higher scale applications. A wide variety of approaches have been proposed for detecting and assessing soil contamination via its impacts on soil properties or its effects on vegetation health and associated traits (e.g. biochemical, biophysical, structural, phenological, morphological). These approaches open the way to survey contaminated areas and characterize the impacts of anthropogenic activities on the environment.
This Special Session aims to present original researches that specifically address
various aspects of soil contamination monitoring over space and time using imaging
spectroscopy sensors, platforms and missions.

List of topics

  • Impacts of anthropogenic activities on vegetation (forest, agircultural, urban vegetation…)
  • Anthropic impact characterization on soils (industrial or urban brownfields, agricultural, mines…)
  • Ecosystem survey and monitoring 
  • Multi-scale / multi-sensor methodology to improve anthropogenic impact characterization over space and time

Organisers

Sophie Fabre, Research Director (DR2), ONERA, DOTA (Optics and Associated
Techniques Department), Toulouse France, sophie.fabre (at) onera.fr

Julien Parelle, Assistant professor, Chrono-environnement (UMR 6249), CNRS
(Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) and UBFC (Université de Bourgogne
Franche-Comté), Besançon France, julien.parelle (at) univ-fcomte.fr