EUREECA: Rare Earth Elements in Urban and mining aReas: an EmErging Concern for soil (and human) health
The EUREECA project (PRIN2022Y4J7AN) is funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU and the Italian Ministry of University and Research.
Its primary objective is to obtain a detailed picture of the presence, mobility, and ecotoxicity of rare earth elements (REEs) in the pedosphere and their transfer to the atmosphere and biosphere, particularly to plants.
REEs are a group of elements considered strategic by the European Union but also included in the list of contaminants of emerging concern (CEC).
To this end, the project will consider the main environmental compartments in which REEs can be present in substantial quantities and will evaluate source-receptor relationships through experiments aimed at assessing their potential transfer between environmental compartments. The environments studied will be urban, industrial, and mining areas in Piedmont, Tuscany, and Sardinia, where both large urban areas and sites affected by intense mining activity are present alongside industrial sites.