The Bagnoli’s brownfield site (southern Italy) is an environmental priority for the Italian Government and is currently considered as a case study for the definition and application of innovative approaches to ecosystem recovery after a prolonged pollution history and eventual steel plant decommissioning.

Here, we analyse high-quality datasets that constrain the distribution patterns and sources of contaminants in the coastal zone facing the site where the steel plant operated for almost one century. Innovative statistical approaches provide new insights into the temporal and spatial distribution of anthropogenic impacts, documented over the last 30 years, following lines of evidence emerging from investigations on grain size, TOC, heavy metals, PAHs, PCBs and high-resolution morpho-bathymetric information.

The results derived from statistical analysis, referred also to the seafloor morphological variability, highlighted the presence of recent disposal of highly contaminated sediments and their potential pathways of dispersion to wider and deeper water zones.

The adopted multidisciplinary approach yields fundamental information towards an effective and proper ecosystem recovery of highly contaminated marine coastal areas and provides at the same time, a sound base for the refitting of decommissioned industrial plants.