ISLANDR is a multi-faceted research project that seeks to develop tools and approaches for the delineation of soil pollution sources, the assessment of risks, the implementation of sustainable and risk-based land management, the inclusion of a wider valuation approach in financial and investment cases, the closer integration of land contamination and spatial planning decision-making, with all of the afore research outcomes feeding into the drawing up of key policy relevant findings. While this inspires the project’s vision and motto, ISLANDR for Soil Health, establishing a coherent workflow that weaves and seamlessly integrates these aspirations merits specific attention. A meeting, fully dedicated to take on this challenge, was hosted by Paul Bardos (R3) in Sonning on 8 January 2024. It brought together several of ISLANDR leading researchers on soil remediation and on financial and spatial planning strategies. Despite concerns about the quickly rising water level outside the meeting room, the discussions proved highly productive and led to a consensus on the need for the drawing up of an ISLANDR Roadmap. The proposed ISLANDR Roadmap is structured on the basis of the typically four stages in a soil remediation and land reuse project: vision/initiative – planning – realisation – maintenance; and permits to bring into concrete view the interactive links and connections between alternative choices or sets of activities. The meeting also resolved to now road-test the building blocks of the proposed Roadmap concept. Firstly with other areas of expertise in ISLANDR, for example, so as to incorporate also the risk-assessment findings, to establish linkages to policy aspects, as well as how to ensure the wider uptake of the ISLANDR Roadmap as a decision-support framework for soil remediation and land reuse projects beyond the project’s lifetime.

(from top left:) Linda Maring (Deltares), James Baker (Temas Solutions), Begoña Arellano Jaimerena (Deltares), Lars Rosen (Chalmers) and Paul Bardos (R3). Photo taken by Claudia Neculau (R3)

Sonning is a village in Berkshire, England, on the river Thames, east of Reading. The village was described by Jerome K. Jerome in his book Three Men in a Boat as "the most fairy-like little nook on the whole river". ¹  (Source: Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonning) ¹ Jerome, Jerome K (1889). Three Men in a Boat (1964 ed.). London: Folio Society. p. 141