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The increasing need for biomass for energy and feedstocks, along with the need to divert organic methane generating wastes from landfills, may provide the economic leverage necessary to return this type of marginal land to functional and economic use and is strongly supported by policy at the European Union (EU) level. The use of land to produce biomass for energy production or feedstocks for manufacturing processes (such as plastics and biofuels) has, however, become increasingly contentious, with a number of environmental, economic, and social concerns raised.The REJUVENATE project has developed a decision support framework to help land managers and other decision makers identify potential concerns related to sustainability and what types of biomass reuse for marginal land might be possible, given their particular circumstances. The decision-making framework takes a holistic approach to decision making rather than viewing biomass production simply as an adjunct of a planned phytoremediation project. The framework is serviceable in Germany, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. These countries have substantive differences in their land and biomass reuse circumstances. However, all can make use of the set of common principles of crop, site, value, and project risk management set out by REJUVENATE. This implies that the framework should have wider applicability across the EU. This article introduces the decision support framework. O c 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. INTRODUCTIONThe use of land to produce biomass for energy production or feedstocks for manufacturing processes (such as plastics and biofuels) has become increasingly contentious, with a number of environmental, economic, and social concerns raised. Across Europe there are areas of land that have been damaged by past use. These include brownfields 1 and land affected by contamination. In a large number of situations this land is derelict or underutilized because its restoration is uneconomic or unsustainable using conventional methods. This economically stalled land is described as "marginal land" within this article.There are estimated to be close to one million potential brownfield sites across the European Union (EU; Oliver et al., 2005). The European Environment Agency (EEA) has also collated information regarding the quantity of land contaminated by point sources in Europe. In August 2007, the EEA (EEA, 2007) would require cleanup, with potentially polluting activities having occurred at nearly 3 million sites, and the number of sites was projected to increase. The EEA's report concluded that "although considerable efforts have been made already, it will take decades to clean up a legacy of contamination.""Although considerable efforts have been made already, it will take decades to clean up a legacy of contamination."The extent of diffuse contamination is less well known as evidenced by the European Commission's (EC's) 2010 report, European Environment State and Outlook on Soil (EC, 2010), but appears to be a substantial problem. For example, across tw...

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Electroremediation makes treatment of contaminated clay soils possible. The external electrical field causes several transport processes and changes in soil chemistry. This study concerns the leachability and transport of calcium, magnesium, copper, zinc, lead, nickel manganese, chromium, and iron during treatment with an electric field of soil from a chlor-alkali factory. As expected, most elements were removed from the acidic part of the soil and accumulated in the zone where pH changed from acidic to alkaline. However, acidic leaching of the soil in this zone did not mobilize the elements. Lead formed both an anionic complex which electromigration transported toward the anode as well as a cationic lead fraction which moved toward the cathode. The anionic complex could be lead sulfate. Lead from both fractions was strongly attached to the soil after treatment. The low availability of metals and macroelements after electrokinetic remediation could make electroremediation, excavation, and deposition of the accumulation zone an alternative for the treatment of contaminated soils.