Sustainable Management Approaches and Revitalization Tools - Electronic (SMARTe)

Revitalization of contaminated sites is a global concern that requires an integrated approach to mitigate the risks to human health and the environment. Many countries have committed extensive resources to addressing environmental, social, and economic issues related to the cleanup and revitalization of brownfields sites. The challenge is to determine how to capitalize on the available resources, expertise, and knowledge and effectively share and transfer that information to the organizations and individuals responsible for making decisions and implementing revitalization efforts.

EPA and the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research Bundesministerium Für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) have initiated a cooperative effort to share such information and evaluate new solutions for the revitalization of potentially contaminated sites.

Sustainable Management Approaches and Revitalization Tools - electronic (SMARTe) is a Web-based information source and decision support tool. The purpose of SMARTe is to aid stakeholders in identifying, applying, and integrating tools and technologies to facilitate the revitalization of potentially contaminated sites in the United States. SMARTe is intended to be a living Web-based system that can be updated as new tools, technologies, and approaches become available for revitalization.

SMARTe will provide a decision support tool for developing and evaluating plans for land revitalization. Its decision analysis capabilities are intended to be used by brownfields project stakeholders for:

• Assessing both market and non-market costs and benefits of revitalization options
• Comparing alternative reuse scenarios
• Clarifying both private and public financing options
• Evaluating and communicating environmental risks
• Easing access to pertinent state specific information related to specific projects

SMARTe is the umbrella providing entry points for tools and information at the level of detail desired by the user. SMARTe contains four components:

• An electronic document that provides information on the revitalization process
• A screening tool that leads the user through the revitalization process
• A tool box to analyze and solve revitalization issues
• A search engine for information tools, and best practices

SMARTe will provide the analytical tools needed to implement and integrate each component of the decision process. In the future, SMARTe will use expert system technology to integrate environmental, social and economic issues in a multi-criteria decision analysis so that stakeholders can evaluate alternative reuse scenarios. The goal of SMARTe is to not only provide the tools and information needed by a user to solve a revitalization issue, but also to integrate these tools and information into an assessment that facilitates sustainable revitalization.

Sunday, September 7, 2008