River specific pollutants : indentification and monitoring : workshop report

Besides the set of Priority Substances laid down in Annex X of the Water Framework Directive 2000/60/EC (WFD), which are regulated and to be monitored at EU level, the EU Member States (MS) need to identify pollutants of regional or local importance (in particular substances listed in WFD, Annex VIII) and provide environmental quality standards (EQS), monitoring schemes, and regulatory measures for them. This means that MS need to decide which are the candidate substances for further investigation and which are the substances then to be declared as River Basin-Specific Pollutants (RBSP). This requires assessments of impacts as well as prioritisation efforts and strategic screening for substances possibly causing concern. While this is a matter of discretion for each of the MS of concern, there is as yet no harmonization of the procedures involved. Therefore, JRC (European Commission, Joint Research Centre)and NORMAN (Network of Reference Laboratories for the Monitoring of Emerging Environmental Substances) organized a workshop in order to support MS. The objective of the workshop was to provide a common forum for MS and interested groups for presenting, discussing and streamlining approaches for a harmonised selection and monitoring of RBSP in the WFD context. Particular attention was given to emerging contaminants, as their prioritisation and monitoring are particularly challenging. The workshop aimed to produce clear recommendations on how to proceed.