Atlantic Canada's long history of resource and industrial development has made significant contributions to the social and economic growth of the region. While this activity has benefited each province, there are areas in the region that have borne the social and environmental costs of development. These are communities left with a residuum of post-industrial landscapes, derelict lands and damaged waterways. These areas occur inside communities with contaminated sites, brownfields, and abandoned, deteriorating industrial landscapes, and in areas with abandoned mines and farms, impoverished forest and non-forest ecosystems.

These issues are well known to many individuals, scholars, businesses and government agencies, who work in many different disciplines to find the ways and means to restore the health of these lands and thus contribute to greater prosperity, more liveable communities and healthier ecosystems in Atlantic Canada.

ARC2010 is an event for individuals and teams to share information, further knowledge, increase awareness, encourage education and investigation into problems and solutions in the many areas of land and waterway reclamation, restoration and rehabilitation. Examples of work this covers include: mine site reclamation, brownfield redevelopment, contaminated site restoration, erosion and sediment control planning, revegetation planning, wetland and soil quality research, landuse planning, landscape design, policy, regulation and fiscal planning, environmental risk and liability insurance policies, and more.