Environments 2026, 13(2), 92; https://doi.org/10.3390/environments13020092 (registering DOI) - 7 Feb 2026
Abstract
Urban parks are essential to sustainable cities, providing climate regulation, supporting biodiversity, and offering vital spaces for recreation and overall well-being. At the same time, their soils can act as long-term reservoirs for persistent organic pollutants (POPs), reflecting decades of atmospheric deposition, diffuse
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Urban parks are essential to sustainable cities, providing climate regulation, supporting biodiversity, and offering vital spaces for recreation and overall well-being. At the same time, their soils can act as long-term reservoirs for persistent organic pollutants (POPs), reflecting decades of atmospheric deposition, diffuse urban emissions, and historical land-use practices. This review synthesises current knowledge on the occurrence, sources, and environmental behaviour of priority POPs, including OCPs, PCBs, PCDD/Fs, PBDEs, PFAS, and PAHs, in the soils of urban parks and gardens worldwide. Evidence from multiple regions reveals consistent patterns: urban parks accumulate complex mixtures of legacy and emerging contaminants, reflecting both historical inputs and ongoing urban activities. These contaminants primarily contribute to scenarios of chronic, low-level exposure through the ingestion of soil and dust, inhalation of resuspended particles, dermal contact, and, in some cases, dietary intake when food is cultivated in contaminated park soils. While such exposure pathways have been associated with a range of adverse health outcomes in toxicological and epidemiological studies, the presence of POPs in park soils does not imply that urban parks represent hazardous environments. Instead, it emphasises the importance of proportionate, evidence-based assessments within spaces that yield substantial net benefits to public health. Despite growing research interest, significant gaps remain, including limited understanding of mixture toxicity, insufficient data on temporal trends, a lack of harmonised monitoring strategies, and the absence of exposure scenarios specifically tailored to recreational soils. This review also examines major international and European regulatory frameworks and soil-quality guideline approaches relevant to urban and recreational soils, identifying mismatches between scientific evidence and regulatory practice. By integrating perspectives from environmental chemistry, toxicology, urban ecology, and policy, this review highlights the importance of targeted monitoring and context-specific management strategies to ensure that urban parks remain safe, healthy, and equitable components of increasingly complex urban landscapes.
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