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5.2.2. Emissions to water
Reporting known or estimated chemical emissions is a way to gather information on trends over time, without knowing what impact those might have. Unfortunately, emissions data on priority substances as reported for the WFD, E-PRTR and WISE-SoE are only partially informative. The WFD dataset is difficult to interpret, with apparent errors, inconsistencies and missing river basin districts.
Lack of comparable information at EU level on diffuse sources of pollution to water represents a potentially significant gap (Roovaart et al, 2013a and b).
Given these significant concerns, what can we see in the data?
Table 3.2 provided an overview of the number of Member States reporting of emissions in 2010 for the different source groups: industry, UWWTPs and diffuse sources.
The metals cadmium, lead, mercury and nickel were widely reported, but even for these long-regulated substances are there difficulties with the data reporting. While a range of diffuse sources were reported for metals, different approaches in calculation between the countries render those data incomparable.
For another set of pollutants, about half of the countries reported on a regular basis (some PAHs, 4-Nonylphenol, DEHP). Although this allows for some overview at European level, there were difficulties with the data from different reporting streams (E-PRTR, WFD, WISE-SoE), making interpretation of trend difficult.
For a number of pollutants, only a few Member States report loads (TBT, Brominated diphenylethers, Isoproturon, hexachlorocyclohexane). Therefore, no useful overview exists for these pollutants at EU level.
Diffuse sources of pollution have been reported by only a few countries, even though – where they are reported – they seem to constitute a large proportion of diffuse sources for almost all priority substances (Roovaart et al, 2017). This represents a significant data gap.
Ways forward :
Currently, data on emissions are required under EU legislation for both EPRTR and WFD, and are voluntarily reported under WISE SoE. Improving emissions data so that they are collected under consistent and comparable approaches would provide clear information on the direction of travel for chemical pressures. This could be especially helpful for substances where the surface water chemical status assessed under WFD is driven by historic rather than current emissions. Streamlining reporting, so that robust data collected for one obligation would satisfy the European emissions reporting requirement, could offer a way to address this issue.
As point sources of pollution are better controlled, so the relative significance of diffuse sources increases. Our lack of knowledge about diffuse emissions represents an important information gap. Improvement in the monitoring and reporting of diffuse sources is needed, to ensure that pressures are correctly understood and measures can be appropriately targeted.
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Previous comments
DE-UBA II 2.2:
'Unfortunately, emissions data on priority substances as reported for the WFD, E-PRTR and WISE-SoE are only partially informative.'
As described before, according to EU Technical Guidance there is no need to report emissions for all river basin districts (only if substances are relevant further information (emissions from point and diffuse sources/pathways) is needed). If substances are identified as not relevant - only river loads need to be calculated.
DE-UBA II 2.2:
'Unfortunately, emissions data on priority substances as reported for the WFD, E-PRTR and WISE-SoE are only partially informative.'
As described before, according to EU Technical Guidance there is no need to report emissions for all river basin districts (only if substances are relevant further information (emissions from point and diffuse sources/pathways) is needed). If substances are identified as not relevant - only river loads need to be calculated.
DE-UBA II 2.2:
'For a number of pollutants, only a few Member States report loads (TBT, Brominated diphenylethers, Isoproturon, hexachlorocyclohexane). Therefore, no useful overview exists for these pollutants at EU level.'
a) typo it should be small letter isoproturon
b) Are river loads meant? For the German inventory we decided regarding river loads - if more than 50% of monitoring values (at a certain monitoring station) are below detection limit no river loads are calculated (because of uncertainty).
DE-UBA:
in the section 'Ways forward' it should also be (with hyphenation) E-PRTR
"Streamlining reporting, so that robust data collected for one obligation would satisfy the European emissions reporting requirement, could offer a way to address this issue"
Agree with this proposal, there is a lack of data on emissions to water, howeverstreamlining is not always easy to accomplish with different goals in legislations
and different aproaches for environmental protection which might need different substances to measure aso, an open mind how to do it could be useful.
"Improvement in the monitoring and reporting of diffuse sources is needed, to ensure that pressures are correctly understood and measures can be appropriately targeted."
Agree with this, diffuse emissions to water represent an important source for pressures and the issue should be adressed.
The conclusions are agreed, both emission measurements and the deeper understanding and much better estimation of diffuse contaminations is needed.
There are no more additions and comments to the remaining part of chapter 5, the conclusions and recommendations are accepted.