A study of contaminated land in São Paulo city, Brazil and mainly adopted remediation process face a deficient database

Abstract

Since emblematic environment contaminated cases, as Love Canal in United States was found out, the discussion regarding contaminated land are common in scientific community, covering subjects as urban planning, public health and availability of natural resources. Concerns with environment contamination are also relevance because can impact the progress to The Sustainable Development Goals, a global blueprint to develop a sustainable future. Contaminated land refers to areas that have been contaminated by industrial activities, irregular waste disposal or toxic substances. Lack of management of these areas can harm the development of sustainable future, for the cities and citizens. Therefore, the existence and availability of data on the areas that are contaminated is necessary to create better urban planning. In Brazil there are not federal programs to deal with contaminated sites and a federal database regarding this information is absent. However, São Paulo State has been a pioneer in management of contaminated areas in Brazil, developing laws and regulations, since 1999. The aim of this research is to present data regarding contaminated areas in municipality of São Paulo, in five districts, providing information about the scattering of contaminated areas across the districts, the main polluting activity, also observing aspects as revitalization and clean-up process to realize if the remediation process is occurring in the city. This study is a qualitative exploratory research, with information obtained from secondary sources. The results indicated that the main polluting activity is gas station, the process of revitalization and clean-up is happening in all districts evaluated, also showed that environment compartment more affected is Groundwater.