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Systematic and bibliographic review of sustainability indicators for contaminated site remediation: comparison between China and western nations

Systematic and bibliographic review of sustainability indicators for contaminated site remediation: comparison between China and western nations
Systematic and bibliographic review of sustainability indicators for contaminated site remediation: comparison between China and western nations

Sustainable remediation, which promotes the use of more sustainable practices during environmental clean-up activities, is an area of intense international development. While numerous indicators related to sustainable remediation assessment have been utilized and published in related academic literature, they are difficult to unify and vary in emphasis between countries. Following literature retrieval from CNKI, Springer, ScienceDirect, and Wiley Online databases, we present a systematic and bibliometric analysis of relevant national and international literature to define the most frequently considered indicators of sustainability, which play important roles in selecting remediation technologies or site management methods from a sustainability perspective. Following the application of co-occurrence analysis and social network analysis, the results indicate that 1) environmental criteria are most commonly used in evaluating remediation technologies, with significantly less emphasis on social criteria in Chinese publications in particular; 2) with an increasing number of publications in the last 20 years, sustainable remediation has gone through an initial stage, rising stage, and burst or wider adoption stage, characterized by a transformation of the research theme from a predominantly risk-based management approach to a sustainability-based one, with risk management as an underpinning principle; 3) health, resource, cost, and time are the most widely used indicators in terms of social, environmental, economic, and technical criteria, respectively; 4) clear differences exist between China and other nations, particularly in the frequency of usage of each indicator, the application of social criteria, and preferred stakeholders. Nevertheless, China has made significant progress and now makes increasing contributions to sustainable remediation at an international level.

Co-occurrence analysis, Contaminated site management, Evaluation indicator, Social network analysis, Sustainable remediation
0013-9351
Li, Xiaonuo
05e8eb6d-45b7-49bd-8eae-2e1d5d1b4800
Cundy, Andrew B.
994fdc96-2dce-40f4-b74b-dc638286eb08
Chen, Weiping
932395b9-a198-453f-af8a-4e63f8505f8b
Lyu, Sidan
acdab435-5245-4b77-8983-96c6142ea86c
Li, Xiaonuo
05e8eb6d-45b7-49bd-8eae-2e1d5d1b4800
Cundy, Andrew B.
994fdc96-2dce-40f4-b74b-dc638286eb08
Chen, Weiping
932395b9-a198-453f-af8a-4e63f8505f8b
Lyu, Sidan
acdab435-5245-4b77-8983-96c6142ea86c

Li, Xiaonuo, Cundy, Andrew B., Chen, Weiping and Lyu, Sidan (2021) Systematic and bibliographic review of sustainability indicators for contaminated site remediation: comparison between China and western nations. Environmental Research, 200, [111490]. (doi:10.1016/j.envres.2021.111490).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Sustainable remediation, which promotes the use of more sustainable practices during environmental clean-up activities, is an area of intense international development. While numerous indicators related to sustainable remediation assessment have been utilized and published in related academic literature, they are difficult to unify and vary in emphasis between countries. Following literature retrieval from CNKI, Springer, ScienceDirect, and Wiley Online databases, we present a systematic and bibliometric analysis of relevant national and international literature to define the most frequently considered indicators of sustainability, which play important roles in selecting remediation technologies or site management methods from a sustainability perspective. Following the application of co-occurrence analysis and social network analysis, the results indicate that 1) environmental criteria are most commonly used in evaluating remediation technologies, with significantly less emphasis on social criteria in Chinese publications in particular; 2) with an increasing number of publications in the last 20 years, sustainable remediation has gone through an initial stage, rising stage, and burst or wider adoption stage, characterized by a transformation of the research theme from a predominantly risk-based management approach to a sustainability-based one, with risk management as an underpinning principle; 3) health, resource, cost, and time are the most widely used indicators in terms of social, environmental, economic, and technical criteria, respectively; 4) clear differences exist between China and other nations, particularly in the frequency of usage of each indicator, the application of social criteria, and preferred stakeholders. Nevertheless, China has made significant progress and now makes increasing contributions to sustainable remediation at an international level.

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Systematic and bibliographic review of sustainability indicators ... - Accepted Manuscript
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Accepted/In Press date: 3 June 2021
e-pub ahead of print date: 9 June 2021
Published date: 1 September 2021
Additional Information: Funding Information: This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China [grant number 2020YFC1807500 ]. We are grateful to Junjing Jie for his considerable contribution to the artworks and valuable feedback on the early stage of data processing. Publisher Copyright: © 2021 Copyright: Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
Keywords: Co-occurrence analysis, Contaminated site management, Evaluation indicator, Social network analysis, Sustainable remediation

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 450386
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/450386
ISSN: 0013-9351
PURE UUID: 4113dcda-46a4-4461-af19-529190a88e60
ORCID for Andrew B. Cundy: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-4368-2569

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Date deposited: 27 Jul 2021 16:30
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 06:42

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Contributors

Author: Xiaonuo Li
Author: Andrew B. Cundy ORCID iD
Author: Weiping Chen
Author: Sidan Lyu

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