Water and soil environmental risk assessment in Lithuania

The quality of water and soil are conditioned not only by the natural phenomena, but also by the economic activity on the surface of land, especially the existence of pollution sources. The inventory of sources of pollution started in Lithuania back in 1990–1995. At that time, the main focus was on the inventory and examination of landfill sites and former Soviet Union military bases, and former warehouses of pesticides. Law on Environmental Monitoring was adopted in 1997. It regulates not only the state environmental monitoring, but also the requirement applicable to economic entities (the potential polluters) to carry out the monitoring of the impact on the environment as well as groundwater. Nowadays, soil and groundwater may be polluted by approx. 11 thousand contaminated sites in Lithuania, and approx. 4.5 thousand of them the potential for pollution is very high. The total estimated area of polluted land is about 280 m2 , or 0.43 % territories of the country. However, in contaminated sites the allowable limits are not exceeded (Bukantis et al., 2013). Contamination of Lithuania’s sites emerged from both previously and currently pursued industrial, commercial and intensive agricultural activity and various chemicals and toxic substances used in them. Dangerous chemical substances, found when examining the soil and the underground water of contaminated sites are petroleum products, heavy metals, miscellaneous pesticides and other less common dangerous chemical substances used in specific industry branches and others (Vasarevicius et al., 2015). The diffusive pollution sources are distinguished into two main groups: pollution conditioned by agricultural activity and pollution conditioned by residents discharging waste water, which is not collected and treated.[...]Vytauto Didžiojo universitetasŽemės ūkio akademij