ETC/ICM Report 3/2015: Hazardous Substances in European Waters - Analysis of the data on hazardous substances in groundwater, rivers, transitional, coastal and marine waters reported to the European Environment Agency from 2002 - 2011

16 Dec 2015

Nils Hettich

This report is an update and extension of the ETC/ICM Technical Report No. 1/2013 ‘Hazardous substances in European waters – Analysis of the data on hazardous substances in groundwater, rivers, transitional, coastal and marine waters reported to the European Environment Agency from 1998–2010’ covering the new period 2002–2011 as well as including lake data for the first time. The marine environment assessment has not been updated with 2011 data, but a new comprehensive overview of the availability of marine biota and sediments has been added. 

The report provides a systematic summary presentation of the data on hazardous substances’ concentrations reported by the 39 member and collaborating countries to the European Environment Agency. It gives a quick overview of the state and availability of State of Environment (SoE) hazardous substances data in rivers, lakes, groundwater, transitional / coastal / marine waters, occurrence, concentrations levels and developments over time as well as “traffic light indicators” at country level by comparisons with quality standards, where applicable. These overviews are considered useful for a compact display of the thousands of data records for each substance, but should not be seen as an assessment of the situation between the reporting countries. 

Due to its large size, the report is being published in 2 volumes. 

Prepared by:

ETC/ICM members: Vít Kodeš, Silvie Semerádová, Miroslav Fanta (CENIA), Benoit Fribourg-Blanc (OIEau), Birger Bjerkeng, Norman Green (NIVA), Gašper Šubelj, Marko Kovačič (TC Vode), Joergen Noerrevang Jensen (ICES), and Anita Künitzer (UFZ)

Published by: ETC/ICM, December 2015, 497 pp.