| Abstract |
This report outlines the highlights and logistics of major fieldwork campaigns across the Greater London area during the summers of 2008 to 2009 and minor field campaigns in 2005 and 2006. The Geochemical Baselines Survey of the Environment (G-BASE) project embarked on field sampling of soils from across the urban sprawl of London and surrounding towns in 2005 (Scheib and Brown, 2005; Scheib et al., 2006); a continuation of the on-going national, regionalscale geochemical survey of soils and streams. Also in 2005, urban centres across south Essex and parts of east London were surveyed. Further progress was made in 2006 across east London and Southend-on-Sea, largely completing coverage of the 'Thames Gateway'. At the time this region was earmarked for redevelopment, and the survey was planned in anticipation of a demand for geochemical data and to coincide with other BGS work in this area. In 2008, with the inception of the Geochemical Baselines Team, it was decided to commence a more focused effort to complete the sampling of the London urban area, defined by the Greater London Authority (GLA) area, comprising all 32 London Boroughs plus the City of London. This project was entitled London Earth and since has been registered as Trademark (Appendix 6). The completion of the field survey of the GLA area is a deliverable for the G-BASE project by the end of the 2009-10 financial year. In addition, a 15 km 'buffer' around the GLA zone will be used to define the outer limits of the London Earth project area, in effect the urban and 'periurban' areas for all London. These data will provide a unique opportunity to compare the urban geochemistry with that of the peri-urban region. London Earth set out to establish the soil geochemical baseline of the most populated area in the UK, providing geochemical data to investigate soil quality and geochemical processes to help quantify the influences of man-made activities and to evaluate the levels of elements which are potentially hazardous in the environment. These data will be made available to all under license. Field procedures were carried out in accordance with the BGS version-controlled edition of the 2005 G-BASE field procedures manual: first revision (Johnson, 2005). Since 2008 a new sample type was introduced and collected across the urban area. The procedure for this is an Appendix (1) to this current report and has been included in the revised version of the manual. This report also serves as a record of difficulties encountered, health and safety incidents and near-misses in the field. |
