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3.3 Chemical substances causing failure in achieving good status

Chemicals legislation focuses on controlling the use of a particular substance, supported by regulation to control emissions. Chemical status under the WFD provides an overview of contamination and the effectiveness of measures. If a priority substance is causing failure, either pollution prevention is not yet delivering the required environmental objective, or the contamination results from historic sources. For some substances, chemical pollution may be a local issue which can be controlled within the river basin district. But where several Member States report that a substance is not meeting the standard for good chemical status, and a significant number of waterbodies are failing the standard, the issue may be of wider concern, particularly where persistent, bioaccumulative and/or toxic substances are concerned.

 

Table 3.2 shows the most frequently reported “top 15” priority substances found in surface water bodies; all the uPBTs are in this list. Looking at the number of water bodies it is clear that mainly mercury and brominated diphenylethers are responsible for failure to achieve good chemical status. The other substances cause failure in relatively low numbers of water bodies. Table 3.2 shows that large numbers of records from a particular Member State can significantly impact the listing of “most frequently reported” substances failing a standard. Therefore, in terms of understanding the relevance of a pollutant at a European scale, a larger number of countries reporting a particular substance is indicative of more widespread issues.

Note * shows where substance is a uPBT.

Source: Preliminary results based on WISE-SoW database) including data from 25 Member States (EU28 except Greece, Ireland and Lithuania).

Previous comments

  • voet (Jan Hendrik Voet) 26 Feb 2018 14:37:50

    BE-FLA (KB): p.37-38 Chemical status and chemical substances causing failure in achieving good status

    It must be clear that the conclusions are seriously biased, with monitored data on the one hand, and reported data based on ‘what is likely to occur’ on the other hand. The decisions are different, depending on the substance considered and the member state.

  • voet (Jan Hendrik Voet) 26 Feb 2018 14:39:37

    BE-FLA (RV): p. 38 Some priority substances are causing causing few or no failures to achieve good chemical status,…

    Some priority substances are on their own causing few or no failures to achieve good chemical status, but may contribute to cause failure, …

  • Annalisa Bortoluzzi (invited by Caroline Whalley) 28 Feb 2018 12:40:55

    Table 3.2

    The report identifies that a small percentage of water bodies are not achieving good chemical status for Pb (0.42%), but it is reported that there are 19 Member States with waterbodies not achieving good chemical status for Pb. Does EEA know if MSs reporting failure are using appropriate analytical and bioavailability tools? We suggest this is clarified in the report.

  • farrereg (Regis Farret) 07 Mar 2018 19:39:48

    It would be interesting to say if the substances are forbidden (and if yes, since when)

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