Action 22001 - Monitoring across Policies and Environmental Media (MAPLE)

How can we meet the challenge of surveying and monitoring a steadily increasing number of environmental pollutants in our ecosystems?

Discharges, emissions and losses of pollutants are multimedia and multi-pathway processes with potential for global distribution through all kinds of environmental media, products and waste. Monitoring requirements can be found in many EU Directives, often with a medium-term view or associated with a specific sector of activity.
Improved use of data for integrated impact assessments calls for coherence of monitoring across policies (e.g. environment, food, chemical policies) in order to streamline reporting obligations and optimise the use of monitoring resources in Member States. The MAPLE Action acts as a step towards a laboratory platform for environmental monitoring by providing direct support to different pieces of EU legislation and by developing the science basis for monitoring pollution across environmental media and policies. It will interact directly with stakeholders in the Commission and provide scientific and technical approaches designed to improve, develop and support monitoring requirements across JRC Actions. 

Specific objectives of the action

• To give direct support to the implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) and the Marine Strategy Framework Directive by co-chairing the Expert Group on Chemical Monitoring Activity within the CIS WFD Chemical Status Assessment Group.
• To provide technical advice to the MSFD on issues concerning pollutants, as well as the expert group for the preparation of a guidance document on criteria and methodological standards, for the definition of Good Environmental Status regarding pollutants and their effects, in the context of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive.
• To contribute to the harmonisation and exchange of best practices on chemical monitoring in Member States and international organisations by organising on-site monitoring campaigns with Member States, for improving compliance-checking approaches in the implementation of WFD chemical monitoring provisions for surface water and development of an approach towards a reference laboratory for water monitoring.
• To organise pan-European and regional monitoring exercises to assess multi-media occurrence and levels of new and less-investigated environmental pollutants, including the provision of geo-referenced data pools and their interpretation by chemometric multivariate methods.
• To perform multi-media monitoring of persistent organic pollutants (POPs), in the context of global monitoring requirements such as the Stockholm Convention on POPs, and to provide guidance to the Toolkit Expert Group for estimating the unintentional releases of POPs globally, as mandated by DG ENV.
• To assess the impacts of environmental stressors at molecular level and their link to adverse effects at the organism and population level by developing, testing and using molecular tools for effect-based monitoring.
• To develop and implement methods for testing the toxicity of engineered nano-materials to aquatic organisms.
• To promote integration of chemical and biological monitoring and modelling for the multi-media assessment of the environmental fate of contaminants in support of policy requirements.

To support the necessary environmental assessments of chemical pollutants as addressed by various Directives, Regulations and International Conventions, the MAPLE Action provides a critical mass of internationally recognised expertise and experimental and analytical infrastructure. In 2010, the policy support focus of the Action will be on the implementation of the Water Framework Directive and of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive, where a strengthened contribution as co-chair of related Working Groups is envisaged; on the revision of the Sewage Sludge Directive; on providing support to the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants with special focus on the needs in emerging and developing economies. MAPLE is set up to play an anticipatory role in the identification of emerging pollutants, investigate effects at the biological level and react to substance-specific information requests from Commission services, the EEA and Member State authorities.

MAPLE will also provide environmental information as input for modelling and scenario analyses of other JRC Actions. One of the aims of MAPLE will be to develop a collaborative strategy across the JRC for the establishment of an effective laboratory platform for environmental monitoring across policies and for the identification of new customers, e.g. in the implementation of the CB recommendations of the CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear) action plan.
 

This policy support will be backed up by cutting-edge research activities for the assessment of occurrences and levels of environmental pollutants, including i) the development of temporally and spatially integrated bio-indicators that describe chemical pressure on environmental compartments; ii) research on bioavailability for POPs as an additional risk descriptor to chemistry-based quality standard approaches in current environmental legislation; iii) the exploration of methods for testing the toxicity and understanding the effects of engineered nano-materials on aquatic organisms.

MAPLE will contribute to the JRC theme on Maritime Affairs and to the Thematic Programme on Nanotechnologies. It will also cooperate and benefit from interactions with different Actions across the JRC (APA, NANOBIOSCIENCE, BIOMES, ENSURE, SOIL, PROCAS, FISHREG).

More information can be found on the Rural, Water and Ecosystem Resources Unit web page.

Main customers

- DG Environment
- DG for Health and Consumers
- DG External Relations
- European Environment Agency (EEA)
- United Nations Environment Program (UNEP)
- European Committee for Standardization (CEN)
- International Union for Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC)
- National/Regional Authorities and Environment Agencies in Member States

EU Legislation and Documents supported by this Action

- Water Framework Directive 2000/60/EC
- Marine Strategy Framework Directive 2008/56/EC
- Revision of the Sewage Sludge Directive 86/278/ EEC
- Sixth Community Environment Action Programme - Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs)

Contact Info:
 
Bernd Gawlik - Tel.: +39-0332-789487 E-mail: bernd.gawlik(at)jrc.ec.europa.eu