A holistic approach is key to protect water quality and monitor, assess and manage chemical pollution of European surface waters

Abstract

Chemical pollution of surface waters is a societal concern around the globe. Key problems in current water quality protection, assessment and management are the narrow focus on a small fraction of the chemicals in commerce, concerns for increasingly diverse chemical emissions, and lack of effective diagnosis and management approaches. In reply, three key concepts to address these challenges were developed and tested. The approaches were developed in the context of the European Union Water Framework Directive, based on principles such as the DPSIR-causal framework (Drivers, Pressure, Status, Impact and Response) and the basic feature that water protection and management should be based on a water-system level approach. Collaborative actions of researchers and stakeholders resulted in: (1) an operationalization and implementation of the solution-focused risk assessment paradigm as proposed in 2009, to improve the utility of risk assessments, (2) the provision of a large set of tools and services to prevent, monitor, assess and manage complex mixture pollution problems, and (3) a strategy and a database on intervention options. These three elements were recognized as core elements to help protecting and improving water quality. Although the methods were developed in the context of water quality problems in Europe, the three elements can be applied globally in water quality protection and management.

The RiBaTox web tool: selecting methods to assess and manage the diverse problem of chemical pollution in surface waters

“…Results were evaluated in the context of, and aligned with, the current regulatory framework (the EU-Water Framework Directive [4]). This resulted in (a) a proposal to improve the utility of chemical risk assessments, a (b) suite of improved or novel technical tools and services to diagnose water quality problems with chemicals, and (c) a proposal of a strategy and a solutions database to translate diagnostic results in a programme of measures [5].…”

“…The contents of RiBaTox are applicable to any water management situation, whether local, regional or (inter)national. The decision tree and the methods were derived in the context of the solutionfocused risk assessment paradigm [5,14]. This paradigm is used to improve the utility of the risk assessments and has been the basis for a strategy and a database that provides end-users with solutions options for water quality management planning.…”

“…The web tool supports the recommended changes of chemical pollution protection, assessment and management that have been proposed in associated Policy Briefs (e.g. on using holistic approaches considering chemical pollution from a water-system level point of view [5], for vastly more chemicals and their mixtures [10][11][12], via both monitored and modelled environmental concentrations of chemicals [15], with early consideration of the 'solution space' [16,17], and with associated improvements on, e.g. monitoring data management [18]).…”

“…The research achieved to use the solution-focused risk assessment paradigm as basis for the design of RiBatox decision tree and the fact sheets on the diagnostic tools and services. According to the conceptual framework for solution-focused risk assessments [16], the problem of-and solutions for chemical pollution can be explored from different angles (chemicals, environment, abatement and society, see also [5]). The RiBaTox web tool reflects the different angles of the conceptual framework in the decision tree and the presence of fact sheets related to all the framework angles.…”

Strengthen the European collaborative environmental research to meet European policy goals for achieving a sustainable, non-toxic environment

“…It has been written on the basis of the experience of the large EU-funded projects SOLUTIONS, MARS and GLOBA-QUA. The extensive scientific results of the three projects are documented in about 200 publications each, accessible via the websites https ://www.solut ions-proje ct.eu/, http://www.mars-proje ct.eu/, http://www.globa quaproje ct.eu/en/home/, and have been exploited to derive a series of policy briefs published in this journal [21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32]. We made no attempts to summarize these results here but drew conclusions for the requirement of future European research under systematic involvement of major stakeholders using a small selection of general achievements of the projects to underline these conclusions.…”