Soil Quality Standards: Science or Science Fiction

Environmental standards are normative statements describing a “desired” quality of some part of the environment. It is often argued that standards should be derived from (eco)toxicological effects by scientific methods. In this paper it is argued that such an effect oriented approach has indeed a certain scientific appeal, but is plagued by a large number of problems, especially when applied to soil systems. Soil protection cannot await their solution however. Based on an analysis of the type of quality standards needed in soil protection a provisional list of soil standards -reference values for soil quality — has been published by the Dutch government. The basic philosophy behind this iterative approach towards standards setting is discussed.