Key message
Industrial city authorities can make more health-conscious land-use decisions by treating historical industrial activity as relevant evidence, targeting site investigations where past use and present exposure may overlap, and involving affected communities. The available comparisons in scientific literature raise questions; they do not establish that industrial pollution caused the observed cancer mortality patterns, but they also do not rule out its influence (Fernández-Navarro et al., 2017).
Why it matters
Port cities often grew alongside multiple industries for over a century. Sites moved, expanded, closed, and were redeveloped as the cities around them changed. Industrial areas once peripheral to a settlement may now sit beside or beneath housing or public space. Former industrial land may have been reused without complete records of soil conditions or may have been lost through changing urban patterns and time (Hauser, 2020). These legacies can be difficult to see in contemporary planning and health datasets, but also ignored by contemporary authorities in public health reports (Hauser and Aktürk, 2022).
Cross-city comparisons linked to the oil industry tend to point to potentially important differences in socioeconomic conditions and cancer mortality. But the datasets are not sufficient to confirm or rule out causal relationships: cancer is multi-causal, exposure histories are incomplete, and the comparisons differ in scale, timing, and available indicators (Baron, Carignan and Ploquin, 2006; Rubin et al., 2007; Otitolaiye and Al-Harethiya, 2022). Furthermore, completing or creating such datasets requires extensive transdisciplinary and trans-sectoral collaborations, including epidemiologic and environmental sampling.
Three actions
for local authorities
INTERPRET WITH CARE
Observed differences across countries and cities in mortality or income are descriptive comparisons. They are not evidence that a specific former or current industrial site caused a particular health outcome. Case studies support better integrated investigation and precautionary planning; causal claims require stronger, linked exposure and epidemiological evidence.
A practical sequence to follow
Map known and suspected historical industrial sites alongside current land use and available environmental information.
Identify data gaps, including missing site histories, soil or groundwater status, and locally appropriate health and socioeconomic data.
Prioritize follow-up using a documented process that includes exposure linked to incompatible land use and community knowledge.
Publish methods, limitations, and updates so that uncertainty is visible and decisions can be revisited as evidence improves.
Who should be involved?
Municipal and port planners in port city cases; environmental and public-health agencies; researchers in history, geography, epidemiology, toxicology, and urban planning; and residents or community organizations with local knowledge. Responsibilities and legal powers will vary by jurisdiction; thus, the actions above are proposed planning directions, not a statement of current legal duties.
Evidence base and limits
This brief draws on a draft manuscript “Spatial, environmental, and health justice in industrial port cities: an evidence problem.” It summarizes the manuscript’s examples from Dunkirk and Rotterdam and its illustrative comparisons involving Grande-Synthe, Coudekerque-Branche, Hazebrouck, Avesnes-sur-Helpe, Vlissingen, and Middelburg. The underlying sources include Géorisques, INSEE, OR2S, VZInfo, CBS, and Eurostat.
Selected references
Baron, S., Carignan, J. and Ploquin, A. (2006) “Dispersion of heavy metals (metalloids) in soils from 800-year-old pollution (Mont-Lozere, France),” Environmental science & technology, 40(17), pp. 5319–5326.
Fernández-Navarro, P. et al. (2017) “Industrial pollution and cancer in Spain: An important public health issue,” Environmental research, 159, pp. 555–563.
Hauser, S.J. (2020) “Long Live the Heritage of Petroleum: Discoveries of Former Oil Sites in the Port City of Dunkirk,” Urban Science, 4(2), p. 22.
Hauser, S.J. and Aktürk, G. (2022) “Investigate past polluting activities on public health and land uses,” Cities, 123, p. 103599. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/J.CITIES.2022.103599.
Otitolaiye, V.O. and Al-Harethiya, G.M. (2022) “Impacts of petroleum refinery emissions on the health and safety of local residents,” Journal of Air Pollution and Health, 7(1), pp. 69–80. Available at: https://doi.org/10.18502/japh.v7i1.8921.
Rubin, I.L. et al.(2007) “Environmental health disparities: environmental and social impact of industrial pollution in a community—the model of Anniston, AL,” Pediatric Clinics of North America, 54(2), pp. 375–398.
