Guidance for sediment and biota monitoring under the Common Implementation Strategy for the Water Framework Directive

Environmental Quality Standard (EQS) Directive 2008/105/EC marks an important step in the use of sediments and biota as legal matrices for water quality monitoringchemical status assessment under the Water Framework Directive 2000/60/EC. Analysis of contaminants in sediments and biota is indeed widely recognised as a cost-effective approach in water quality monitoring to describe the general contamination status, to supply reference values for local and regional monitoring and to identify areas of concern where additional monitoring effort is needed. However, before the adoption of the EQS Directive, the water column was the only legally accepted matrix for compliance checking under the WFD. Because of the explicit reference in the EQS Directive to the use of sediments and biota as preferred matrices for the monitoring of hydrophobic substances – especially for the assessment of the long-term impacts, but also for compliance checking, wherever appropriate – MS asked the Commission to publish a guidance document to enhance the degree of harmonisation among EU countries in chemical monitoring of sediments and biota, taking into account best available techniques, standard procedures and common practices. The aim of this article is to present the key features of that guidance document, the main conclusions about current practices in chemical monitoring of sediments and biota, the continuing difficulties in reaching consensus among EU countries, and the need for further improvement.

CARERE Mario;  DULIO Valeria;  HANKE Georg;  POLESELLO S.; 

2012-06-29

ELSEVIER SCI LTD

JRC69651

0165-9936,   

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165993612000957,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC69651,   

10.1016/j.trac.2012.03.005,