They include old municipal landfills such as former household waste landfills and gas works sites, as well as soil-relevant commercial notifications from the commercial register of the state capital of Wiesbaden.

The sites are checked as part of ongoing investigations and administrative procedures. It often turns out that the addresses given are only offices and not production sites - this means that many suspected sites can be ruled out.

The suspected site database provides an up-to-date, reliable and professionally qualified tool for various tasks of the Environmental Agency:

• Providing information to property owners or prospective builders about possible pollutant contamination on their property (legal basis: Environmental Information Act)
• Regular forwarding of the data to the building inspectorate to check building applications and inform building owners about possible pollutant contamination at an early stage (legal basis: Hessian Building Code)
• Preparation of urban land-use planning (development plan and land-use plan) taking into account areas with possible soil contamination (legal basis: Building Code)
• Investigation and, if necessary, remediation of contaminated sites under municipal responsibility (legal basis: Federal Soil Protection Act in conjunction with the Hessian Contaminated Sites and Soil Protection Act)