SoilTox Lab research focuses on contaminants in soil (and groundwater), and subsequent impacts on plants, invertebrates, and human health.
Our interdisciplinary team have expertise in soil chemistry, terrestrial ecotoxicology, environmental and human health risk assessment.
Research at the SoilTox Lab covers
- Traditional pollutants (e.g. metals and hydrocarbons).
- Emerging chemical pollutants such as per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and microplastics.
Our interdisciplinary team has expertise in soil chemistry and terrestrial ecotoxicology as well as environmental and human health risk assessment. Our research looks at the impacts of contaminants in soil, including on plants, invertebrates and human health. We deliver evidence-based outcomes that are used by government, industry and the community to determine risks, make decisions and more safely manage polluted environments.
Examples of our practice-based research
- SoilTox Lab researchers published the first-ever on-farm study in Australia of repeated biosolids applications to soil (2025).
- Study of the relationship between site history and human health risks, drawing on lessons from 13 years of contaminated land risk assessments in Victoria, Australia (2024).
- Literature review on industrial waste applications to soils and associated hazards and benefits (2023). The review investigated wastes relating to soil characteristics, dynamics between soils and waste constituents, and possible impacts on plants, animals, and humans.
- Research modelling ambient background concentrations of elements in soils has been incorporated into the Environment Protection Authority of Victoria’s "Proposed methodology for deriving background level concentration when assessing potentially contaminated land, Publication #1936 (2021), and is widely used by the contaminated land industry.
The SoilTox Lab is is led by Associate Professor Suzie Reichman, and is part of the School of BioSciences at the University of Melbourne, Australia.
Latest news
Contact the SoilTox Lab
The SoilTox Lab acknowledges the Traditional Owners as the original custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We acknowledge the historic dislocation and dispossession of their lands and celebrate the extraordinary resilience of the oldest living culture on the planet. We pay respect to their Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.