🌿 Sampling of soil on urban and industrial sites suspected of contamination — guidance on the procedure

Environment PN-ISO 10381-5

Overview

What this part of the series concerns. The PKN catalogue card describes the scope thus: "Guidance is given on the procedure for the investigation [so in the card — the Polish sentence has a grammatical slip here] of urban and industrial sites which are known or suspected to have become contaminated. It is also applied where there is a need to establish the state of contamination of a given site or where the environmental quality of a given place needs to be established for other purposes. Guidance is also given on collecting the information necessary to assess the hazard and/or to draw up remedial action plans (for example, whether remediation is necessary and suggestions as to the best ways of carrying it out)". Part 5 therefore concerns urban and industrial sites; natural, near-natural and cultivated sites are dealt with by part 4 of the same series.

THE LEGAL POSITION — CHECKED 11 SEPTEMBER 2026. The regulation, Journal of Laws 2016 item 1395, IS IN FORCE, but was amended by the Regulation of the Minister of Climate and Environment of 31 October 2024 (Journal of Laws 2024 item 1657, promulgated 13-11-2024). The amendments covered § 3, § 4, § 8, § 9(1), § 10(1), § 13 and Annex No 1 — that is, EXACTLY those provisions from which this entry takes its steps of procedure. THERE ARE TWO DATES OF ENTRY INTO FORCE and they must not be confused: the amendment to § 3 (groups of land per the local development plan) took effect 14 days after promulgation, that is on 27-11-2024, and the rest — § 4, § 8, § 9, § 10, § 13 and Annex No 1 — after six months, that is on 13-05-2025. We give the steps below in their wording after the amendment, marking those that changed. WHAT DID NOT CHANGE is Annex No 3 — the table of reference methodologies invoking the PN-ISO 10381 series — so the axis of this entry, the invocation of the standard in the legislation, remains the same.

Why this standard is in accreditation scopes — and on what conditions. The Regulation of the Minister of the Environment of 1 September 2016 on the manner of conducting the assessment of land surface contamination (Journal of Laws 2016 item 1395) invokes it not in the paragraphs on the stages of the investigation but in ANNEX No 3, to which § 11(1) refers ("The reference methodologies for carrying out investigations of soil and earth contamination are set out in Annex No 3 to the regulation"). THE INVOCATION IS CONDITIONAL and the entry must say so, in order not to suggest that this one standard suffices for sampling: the table names parts 1, 2 and 3 of the series TOGETHER and always, while part 5 stands as an ALTERNATIVE to part 4 — it is chosen because the site is urban or industrial rather than natural, near-natural or cultivated. In the table of reference methodologies we read that sampling in the field, the preservation, storage and transport of samples and their preparation for laboratory analysis are carried out "on the basis of" five parts of the PN-ISO 10381 series, part 4 concerning natural and cultivated sites, "albo PN-ISO 10381-5 »Jakość gleby – Pobieranie próbek – Część 5: Zasady postępowania podczas badań terenów miejskich oraz przemysłowych pod kątem zanieczyszczenia gleby«" [the act quotes the POLISH title; in English: "or PN-ISO 10381-5 »Soil quality – Sampling – Part 5: Guidance on the procedure for the investigation of urban and industrial sites with regard to soil contamination«"]. This is therefore not a standard applied by choice — a laboratory invokes it because the legislation says so.

THE CATALOGUE STATUS — and this is the most important thing in this entry. All five parts of the series invoked in this regulation are WITHDRAWN in the PKN catalogue, each on a different date (status checked 11 September 2026): part 1 — withdrawn 20 November 2024; parts 2, 3 and 4 — withdrawn 12 March 2025; part 5 — withdrawn 24 November 2025. The dates matter here, because a laboratory that obtained or extended its accreditation a year or two ago was invoking standards that were then still in force. The replacing series PN-EN ISO 18400, which in ISO superseded the 10381 series, is NOT in the PKN catalogue — two queries ("PN-EN ISO 18400" and "PN-EN ISO 18400-104") return "No search results".

This is how we record what we see in the documents, and we go no further. The discrepancy consists in this: a regulation in force names as reference methodologies five withdrawn standards, and there is no Polish successor for them. What consequence this has for the obligations of a laboratory and for the validity of results we do not settle, because we have no document on the point; no provision says that the withdrawal of a standard invalidates a methodology named by a regulation. A laboratory reading this entry has two verifiable facts and takes the decision itself, best of all with its accreditation body.

What this entry does not contain. The steps of PN-ISO 10381-5 itself this entry DOES NOT GIVE, because we did not have the text of the standard — PKN supplies it for a fee and the preview could not be retrieved (checked 11 September 2026). We therefore give not a single working step OF THE STANDARD ITSELF: the way of laying out the sampling grid per ISO, the requirements for tools, the manner of preserving and storing samples, or the forms for field records. The steps given below in the "procedure" field come from the REGULATION which invokes this standard, and each of them names its source together with the paragraph. This is a deliberate departure from our rule of taking the procedure solely from the document in the heading of the entry: we chose it because a laboratory looking for this standard is looking for what it has to do, and the legislation describes that — and we prefer the reader to know where each step comes from rather than to receive a description that looks like a summary of the standard.

A note on the edition: PN-ISO 10381-5:2009 implements ISO 10381-5:2005 [IDT] — an international document four years older than the national edition.

A note on the English title: the PKN catalogue card gives the Polish title only. The title in the English field is our reconstruction from the Polish, not a title transcribed from a source.

WHY THIS ENTRY STANDS UNDER THE HEADING OF A STANDARD WHEN THE STEPS COME FROM LEGISLATION — the decision adopted throughout this knowledge base. A laboratory searches the knowledge base by the NUMBER OF THE STANDARD, because that is what it writes in its accreditation scope and in its report; an entry hidden under the number of a regulation would be unreachable for it. The heading of the standard is therefore an address and not a declaration that the procedure comes from it. Three things are the condition of honesty in such an entry, and all are met here: the heading gives the status of the standard with a date, every step says IN ITS TITLE where it comes from, and a separate paragraph says what the entry does not contain. An entry that does not meet all three should not stand under the number of a standard.

Method principle

THE DESCRIPTION BELOW COMES FROM THE REGULATION, Journal of Laws 2016 item 1395, which invokes this standard — not from the text of the standard, which we did not have; we do not claim that the regulation reproduces the content of PN-ISO 10381-5. The regulation describes sampling for its own purpose, that is the assessment of land surface contamination. An investigation of a site suspected of contamination is conducted under it in stages: first, information is gathered on the activity that may be the cause of contamination and on the substances whose occurrence is to be expected; then the sampling points are planned individually for the given site; and only at the end are samples taken and determinations carried out. The layout of the points is neither random nor uniform — it follows from the location of the sources of contamination, both local (tanks, stores, transport routes, pipelines, technical installations, waste, places where sewage is discharged into the ground) and diffuse (emissions of dust and gases, use of substances directly on the land surface). Representativeness is achieved by dividing the site into sections and taking in each of them many increments, from which a bulk sample is formed. (The soil regulation says „próbki pojedyncze" and „próbka zbiorcza", the sludge regulation „próbki pierwotne" and „próbka ogólna" — the same operation named differently by two acts; in English both pairs become increment / bulk sample.)

Applications

• Assessment of land surface contamination on post-industrial sites before a change of use
• Ground investigations at plants where an installation requiring an integrated permit is or was operated
• Establishing the extent of contamination and planning remediation
• Environmental due diligence in transactions concerning industrial property
• Control investigations after the completion of remediation

Key parameters

Standard

Standard number

PN-ISO 10381-5:2009 (ISO 10381-5:2005 [IDT])

Title (PL)

Jakość gleby -- Pobieranie próbek -- Część 5: Zasady postępowania podczas badań terenów miejskich oraz przemysłowych pod kątem zanieczyszczenia gleby

Title (EN)

Soil quality — Sampling — Part 5: Guidance on the procedure for the investigation of urban and industrial sites with regard to soil contamination (tytuł angielski odtworzony z polskiego — patrz uwaga w opisie)

Step-by-step procedure

1. PROCEDURE UNDER REGULATION Journal of Laws 2016 item 1395, not under the standard — stage one: establishing the activity that may be the cause of contamination (§ 6)

   Establish what activity is or was carried out on the site. THE STEP COMES FROM THE LEGISLATION, not from the standard — we did not have the text of the standard.

2. Stage two: list of substances posing a risk (§ 7) — STEP FROM THE LEGISLATION

   Establish the list of substances whose occurrence in the soil or earth is to be expected with that activity. THE STEP COMES FROM THE LEGISLATION.

3. Stage three: gathering and analysing sources of information AND available investigations (§ 8(1) as worded by Journal of Laws 2024 item 1657) — STEP FROM THE LEGISLATION

   Gather and analyse the available sources of information relevant to assessing the hazard of contamination AND the available and current INVESTIGATIONS of soil and earth contamination by the risk-posing substances from the list established at stage two. The requirement to include existing investigations in the analysis was added by the amendment in force from 13-05-2025; the catalogue of sources in § 8(2) was extended by point 9 — "other sources of information permitting the hazard to be assessed".

4. Stage four: planning the preliminary investigations (§ 9(1)) — STEP FROM THE LEGISLATION

   Establish the group of land and the kind of ground cover; locate the sources of contamination, both local (tanks, stores, transport routes, pipelines, technical installations, waste, places where sewage is discharged into the ground) and diffuse (emissions of dust and gases, use of substances on the land surface); determine the scheme for locating the sampling points for the depth 0–0.25 m below ground level, dividing the site into sections according to its area and setting at least 15 increment points in each section. THE STEP COMES FROM THE LEGISLATION.

5. Stage five: scheme of points and DEPTHS for detailed investigations (§ 10(1)(1) as worded by Journal of Laws 2024 item 1657) — STEP FROM THE LEGISLATION

   Determine, individually for the given site, the scheme for locating the points of INCREMENT sampling AND THE DEPTHS AT WHICH THEY ARE TAKEN, WITH AN INDICATION OF THE THICKNESS OF EACH LAYER SAMPLED — in order to establish the extent of the contamination. THE STEP COMES FROM THE LEGISLATION.

6. Sampling depths (§ 10(1)(2)) — STEP FROM THE LEGISLATION

   Determine the sampling depths in the interval of thickness 0–0.25 m below ground level and deeper than 0.25 m below ground level, down to a depth below the occurrence of the contamination. THE STEP COMES FROM THE LEGISLATION.

7. Taking the samples (§ 10(1)(3) as worded by Journal of Laws 2024 item 1657) — STEP FROM THE LEGISLATION

   Take the samples in accordance with the determined scheme for locating the points of INCREMENT sampling and at the determined depths. WE GIVE NEITHER THE MANNER OF SAMPLING, NOR THE TOOLS, NOR THE PRESERVATION AND STORAGE — they are described by the standard, whose text we did not have.

8. Investigation of soil properties (§ 10(1)(4)(a)) — STEP FROM THE LEGISLATION

   For substances from the group of metals and the metalloid, carry out investigations of the particle size distribution, the organic carbon content AND the value of pH_KCl — the provision, however, narrows this to SAMPLES TAKEN ON LAND OF GROUP II, from a depth of 0–0.25 m below ground level, and in samples from a depth exceeding 0.25 m below ground level — the water permeability of the soil and earth. THE STEP COMES FROM THE LEGISLATION.

9. Measurements and comparison with the permissible contents (§ 10(1)(5) and (6)) — STEP FROM THE LEGISLATION

   Carry out measurements of the risk-posing substances confirmed in the preliminary investigations and compare the results with the permissible contents set out in § 3(1) of the regulation. THE STEP COMES FROM THE LEGISLATION.

10. Documentation of the detailed investigations (§ 10(1)(7)) — STEP FROM THE LEGISLATION

    Draw up documentation containing the dates of sampling, the places of sampling together with the address, the numbers of the cadastral parcels and the coordinates from the satellite navigation system (GPS), the sampling depths and the manner of land use at the place of sampling. THE STEP COMES FROM THE LEGISLATION.

Required equipment and apparatus

Health and safety (OHS)

• Post-industrial sites are sometimes contaminated with substances unknown at the moment of entry — before sampling, establish the history of the site and match the protective measures to the substances expected.
• Where solvents, fuels or gases in the ground are suspected, measure the atmosphere in the excavation before descending; do not enter excavations without shoring.
• Mechanical risk: buried installations, tanks and pipelines — before drilling, check the documentation of the site services.
• Transport soil samples from industrial sites as potentially hazardous material, in closed containers.
• On sites following activity connected with asbestos or hazardous waste, apply separate health and safety procedures — the sampling itself may release dust.

Frequently asked questions