* * * ENVl RONM ENTAL MONITORING IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

Duncan Bayliss and Gordon Walker Division of Geography, Staffordshire University

A comparison was undertaken of the environmental monitoring occurring in four EU cities. This aimed to establish the nature and pattern of the monitoring activity at the local level across environmental media and also the accessibility of the results to third parties. Significant differences are found in both the pattern of what is monitored and also the methodologies used. The arrangements for access to data very widely. Reasons for the differences in monitoring at the local level are considered and the implications for making international comparisons, especially of compliance with legal requirements, are discussed.

INTRODUCTION

In urban areas across the European Union (EU) a wide variety of aspects of environmental quality are monitored relating to, amongst others, air, water and ground contamination. However, the extent of monitoring in any one place, the range of techniques used and the varying levels of sophistication of monitoring strategies can be quite diverse, even for the same environmental media. This paper reports on a study which set out to explore this variability and diversity by establishing and comparing what environmental monitoring was occurring in four cities in the EU. A comprehensive overview covering al l areas of the environment at the local level was attempted as most work on environmental monitoring has tended to focus in detail on specific aspects of monitoring for a single environmental media. However, with the rise in state of the environment reporting more attention has been turned to considering the environment as a whole, and hence the concern here with the overall pattern of monitoring activity and its role within environmental management at a local level.

ENVlRONMENTAL MONITORING IN CONTEXT

Monitoring has a variety of potentially important functions in environmental management. it can allow new and worsening environmental problems to be identified and, by aiding our understanding of these problems, can generate information which may shape policies to address them. Monitoring also enables the success or failure of policies to be judged by revealing trends over time and measuring compliance with targets and legal limits. Finally, monitoring can provide data which feeds into public information programmes, including systems for warning the public of hazardous conditions, and more generally into public education on environmental issues.

Given the value of environmental monitoring, there have been calls from many interested parties recently for more monitoring of a higher standard to be undertaken,

recognising that a range of problems currently exist. The EC Green Paper on the Urban Environment refers at

several points to the current inadequacies of environmental information, commenting that;

‘The lack of accurate and consistent data on many environmental factors acts as a constraint on programme development. It i s difficult to set objective targets for improvement without a clear recognition of the scope of a particular problem’.

(EU Green Paper on the Urban Environment, 1990)

The EU Fifth Action Programme on the environment similarly claims that;

’There is a need for higher quality environmental data in greater quantities gathered and interpreted in a standardised manner by designated bodies in each member state’

in

(Fifth Action Programme on the Environment, 1992)

The UK Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution its 1992 report on freshwater quality i s critical of the

current state of water monitoring calling for more comprehensive monitoring including the extension of the number of standard determinands measured in surface water, the setting up of a national groundwater monitoring network and the introduction of biological monitoring across the country (RCEP, 1992).

Friends of the Earth in the UK have recently been critical of a number of aspects of air quality monitoring, complaining for example, at the low number of NO, monitoring stations in the UK compared to other countries in Europe (ENDS, 1992). Earlier in 1992, Friends of the Earth also complained about how UK government statistics on ground level ozone had been interpreted and presented to convey an undeservedly good impression of ozone levels

14 EU ROP EAN ENVIRONMENT

ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING IN THE EU

Table 1: Topics Covered I AIR Ambient pollutant levels I

Emissions

RADIATION

NOISE

Land use Ground pollutiodcontamination Methane monitoring O ld disposaVindustria1 sites

NATURE CONSERVATION

~

WATER Ground water Surface water Drinking water Sewage disposal/sludge

REFU S €/WASTE

(The Observer, 1993). These concerns have been echoed more officially by the UK Department of the Environment (DOE) Review Group on the Quality of Urban of Air. In its recent first report, the group argued that the DOE'S 'total monitoring effort i s now in urgent need of rationalisation and review' (Department of Environment, 1992al.A further contentious issue has been that of public access to the results of monitoring activity. Over the last few years effort has undoubtedly been put into improving access to the results of monitoring. Compilations of environmental statistics are now available at global (UNEP), international (OECD, EU), national and local levels (Comolet, 1992). In the UK national environmental statistics published annually by the DOE have now been supplemented by the first UK state of the environment report (Department of Environment 199213). To date many local authorities have produced local state of the environment reports drawing together data across environmental media into one report.

The EU has responded to with a directive on Freedom of Access to Environmental Information (EC 90/313) which came into effect in early 1993. The effect of this particular directive in practice remains to be seen given that there are significant practical and technical difficulties in making it deliver genuine freedom of access to information held by public bodies without having to prove an interest.

Given this context, the research reported here set out to establish what environmental monitoring was actually occuring at the local level in the EU and to establish the present availability and accessibility of this information.

THE EU COMPARATIVE STUDY

Throughout 1992 to early 1993 data and information were collected in the cities of Stoke-on-Trent (England), Rennes (France), Erlangen (Germany) and Thesaloniki (Greece). Whilst the stud\ had to restrict itself, in terms of time and money, to only four cities, the different patterns of environmental monitoring and the reasons behind them are highly informative and raise important issues for the EU as well as highlighting considerable further research needs.

rable 2: Questions on Monitoring Methodology

I . Who collected the data initially?

2. How was the data collected? What was the exact location of measurements taken? Where these locations fixed or mobile? What were the scientific instruments used?

How often was data collected and over what time series?

What was the original reason for collecting the data? Is there a legal requirement to collect the data? What i s the involvement and responsibilities of any regulatory bodies?

How is the data stored? Where can it be accessed by the public?

What i s done with the data? Who usedacts on the data i f this is different from who collects it? Who woutd take any restrictive or control measures, using the data?

3.

4.

5.

6.

The questions on monitoring methodology were tailored to each specific topic.

~

Attempting to make international comparisons i s always difficult. For this study a common methodology was adopted in order to make it possible to assess both the differences in the patterns of monitoring that emerge and to highlight problems in establishing comparable data sets between different countries. Thus, it was important to research the methodologies used for the environmental monitoring as well as to obtain data resulting from that monitoring. To achieve this, a list of topics where information was sought and a standard list of questions on methodology was agreed (see Tables 1 and 2).

Without these detailed questions on monitoring methodologies, it would be impossible to assess the representativeness, reliability and comprehensiveness of the data collected. This study was the first time such an overview has been undertaken for each of the cities.

In the discussion below, the overall pattern of monitoring in each of the cities i s compared before more detailed aspects of the methods and techniques used are considered.

THE OVERALL PATTERN OF MONITORING ACTIVITY

Table 3 indicates the 'ready availabiljty' of environmental monitoring results and information for each city. If within the timescale of the project, information was not obtainable for a particular topic, then tois was taken to show its lack of ready availability.

The overall pattern which emerges shows some notable abscences of monitoring and clear differences in coverage between the cities. In considering the coverage of environmental monitoring in each of the cities, it is important to remember that the existence of monitoring under any given topic heading in table 3 does not indicate anything about its quality. This i s a much more difficult assessment to make due to the large number of issues relating to the monitoring methodology which have to

EUROPEAN ENVl RONMENT 15

0 * * * DUNCAN BAYLISS AND GORDON WALKER

I Table 3: Summarv of the Tvoes of Monitoring Occurinr in the Four Cities

Air pollution: ambient levels

Air pollution: emissions

Radioactivity

Noise: noise mapping

Land-use: mapping and statistics

Quality of nature: habitat survey

Ground contamination: backsround levels citv wide survev

~

Thessaloniki Stoke-on-Trent Erlangen Rennes

Y Y Y Y

Y N Y N

Y Y Y Y

Y N Y Y

Y Y Y Y

1 1 Y 1

1 N Y N

Ground Contamination: survey to locate old waste disposal sites chemical analysis of sites

Ground water: systematic monitoring

systematic monitoring mapping of river quality

Drinkins water: svstematic samdinc!

Surface water:

Waste water: regular monitoring I Y I Y I Y I Y

N Y Y N N A Y N

1 Y Y A

N Y Y Y N Y Y Y

Y Y Y Y

Sewage sludge: monitoring for heavy metals

Waste management: information on volumes collected, dlsposed of and recycled

be considered. The detailed information on monitoring methodologies which i s essential for any level of assessment about quality i s contained in a 160 page report to the EU. However, if the details of the monitoring activity are set aside and just the presence or absence of monitoring i s considered for each topic in table 3, some significant omissions are found for each city.

Examples of such omissions include:

0 Stoke-on-Trent and Rennes have no data on overall emissions of pollutants to air; Thessaloniki and Rennes do not have regular systematic sampling of ground water; Only Erlangen has undertaken a city wide survey of background levels of ground contamination and a city wide survey to locate old industrial sites.

The reasons for these differences are varied and the matter of how they have come about is returned to later.

There are also more detailed differences in terms of the presence or abscence of monitoring within the. broad topic headings. For instance, in relation to ambient air monitoring (see table 4) all four cities have monitoring of sulphur dioxide and smoke, pollutants which to an extent are pollution problems associated with greater concern in the past, but Stoke-on-Trent is the only one not to monitor nitrous oxides, ozone, hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide. These other contaminants have been the focus of much recent concern over the health effects of poor air quality.

DIFFERENCES IN MONITORING METHODOLOGY

The many differences in monitoring methodologies employed cannot be discussed exhaustively here. These

~~ ~~~ ~ ~~

N Y Y Y

Y Y Y Y

differences are however worth considering, since differences in methods used in collecting, analysing and reporting information can be crucial to both the quality of that information in terms of representativeness over time and space, and also in affecting whether valid comparisons may be made between countries in the study.

Surface water quality monitoring is a good example. Whilst regular monitoring of surface water is carried out in Rennes, Erlangen and Stoke-on-Trent, the sampling regimes vary widely as do some of the analytical methods and the way this data is used to classify the rivers is totally different. Erlangen has its main river classified including chemical and biological parameters. In Stoke-onTrent only chemical parameters are used. However, there i s only one monitoring point for surface water in side the city boundary which is monitored 4 times per year in Erlangen. In Stoke-on-Trent there are about 30 points within the city boundary on the main river and its tributaries. The frequency of measurement varies between 6 and 52 times per year for these points. This high density monitoring network shows up considerable differences in water quality over short distances of river including some stretches of poor quality (according to the National Rivers Authority classification) which would not be detected if there were very few monitoring points in the city.

So, differences in monitoring methodology in terms of frequency and location of measurement for instance, may potentially greatly affect the picture of environmental quality which is derived and could have important repercussions for the enforcement of standards. This much is quite evident, but this example shows that very significant differences do exist in practice within the EU.

An alternative example of differences in the location and frequency of monitoring is with ground water, where the difference i s easily attributable to whether it is used for

16 EUROPEAN ENVl RONMENT

* * 0 ** * ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING IN THE EU

Table 4: Summary of Ambient Air Monitoring

Y Y N

CH N

co Y N

t Key: Y - regular measurements; 1 - one-off measurement; N - no I measurement

drinking water. In Erlangen ground water. i s important for drinking and i s monitored at 72 sites across the city. Only 1 point is monitored within Stoke-on-Trent, but ground water is not used for drinking water. Such obvious explanations for the differences in monitoring are however uncommon.

The EU drinking water directive specifies sampling at the taps of consumers for compliance to be assessed. This allows for potential contamination of drinking water in the supply network following treatment. From the information supplied to this project, only in Stoke-on-Trent was sampling being done at consumers' taps for the purposes of demonstrating compliance. Elsewhere the samples were taken in the distribution network or at the point of entry to the network. This agains demonstrates that the specific details of monitoring can vary subtly between local areas.

USES OF ENVIRONMENTAL DATA AND ACCESS ARRANGEMENTS

The uses to which the data from monitoring are put vary considerably. For instance, no overall analysis of noise complaints is undertaken in Stoke-on-Trent, the monitoring being largely reactive, resulting from complaints about noise. In contrast Rennes and Erlangen produce noise maps from the results of city wide monitoring. Rennes publishes this in an annual city handbook along with information on how to get help to deal with noise nuisance.

The ways in which data are made available to the public vary enormously with the use of:

registers of data (e.g. surface water quality in the UK); summary reports (many instances); maps (e.g. for noise in Erlangen and Rennes); daily bulletins (e.g. ambient air in Thessaloniki and Erlangen).

There i s no central reference point for environmental monitoring data in any of the cities and no clear starting point in many instances for the uninformed citizen, making access a somewhat haphazard process. Typically, the first information provided on request would tell little about the monitoring methods used to derive any data given, despite the fact that in some instances, such as with surface water quality, this was essential to interpreting the data.

tt was consistently difficult and time consuming to obtain

the information on monitoring methodology which was sought in each of the cities.

REASONS FOR THE DIFFERENCES IN MONITORING AT THE LOCAL LEVEL

Whilst there are many factors that have lead to such a complicated pattern of monitoring, it i s possible to draw out some common basic reasons.

1. Legislative requirements and national policy. A baseline of the minimum monitoring activity is laid down often by national and EU legislation. This baseline thus varies between the countries in the study. There is also often a lot of room left for this to be interpreted at the local level, leaving monitoring activity to be susceptible to other pressures such as cost saving and local politics.

2. Organisation. There i s n o perfect or agreed means of organisation for environmental management, hence the differences in the organisational structures, responsibilities and priorities between different countries which in turn lead to differences in monitoring.

3. History. Environmental monitoring has grown reflecting the growth in awareness of environmental problems and management needs. In each of the cities the pattern of monitoring activity still reflects the way in which monitoring activities have been accumulated over time. For example, in Stoke-on-Trent ambient levels of SO2 and smoke are monitored in detail, resulting from the concern over gross pollution in the 1950s despite this being much less of a problem following the Clean Air Acts legislation. In contrast, the concern over ambient air quality in Thessaloniki, as with Athens, has been very recent and has focussed on other pollutants particularly those resulting from the internal combustion engine. This i s reflected in the monitoring which i s done.

4. Specific events. Radiation monitoring i s a good example of how a dramatic event can raise the political profile of an aspect of environmental quality and draw resources into monitoring. Following the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 a national network for radiation monitoring was set up by local authorities, Stoke-on-Trent being included amongst these.

5. Politics. Political influences operate at national and local levels and their effects may be hard to determine. A proposal to introduce a register of potentially contaminated land in England and Wales has been stalled and wil l probably not be implemented. In contrast, in Germany, Erlangen has set about systematically establishing the nature and extent of ground contamination in the city.

6. Resources. In some instances the high cost of setting up monitoring may prevent it from occuring, as would appear to be the case with extending the monitoring programme to other air pollutants in Stoke-on-Trent.

EUROPEAN ENVIRONMENT 17

DUNCAN BAYLISS AND GORDON WALKER

CONCLUSIONS

The key conclusions from this international comparative project are considered, as are some of the issues and implications these raise are discussed.

Firstly, there is no clear rational or scientific reasoning to the pattern of monitoring which arises in each of the cities studied. There i s not a consistent set of topics monitored at the local level across the EU. Further, the methodologies used for data collection vary considerably and make international comparisons very difficult. It was also difficult to obtain detailed information about the methods used to obtain the data made available, making interpretation of the data as regards issues of representativeness and rigour difficult.

Secondly, the collecters and holders of environmental data are fragmented in each country, with a complex web of responsibilities. The geographical boundaries for different organisations often do not coincide with local government boundaries. This would make the prospects for integrated data sets for pollution control in the short term, at least in the countries studied, seem poor (see also Spooner et a/, 1992).

Thirdly, there are widely varying reporting methods used and practical arrangements for access to environmental data are frequently poor, in each of the countries. This does not imply however lack of cooperation with this project, but rather lack of organisational preparation.

Fourthly, where legislation attempts to set out specific requirements for monitoring it usually does so in terms of the analytical methods and the sampling frequencies to be used. However, this does not necessarily guarantee much comparability between places, since the location of sampling points i s often at least as likely to determine the results reported as the frequency and analytical methods are.

Finally, the existence of an EU directive with specific monitoring requirements does not guarantee that monitoring wil l be occurring or that it wil l be done in accordance with the terms of the directive.

Overall, what is clear from this research i s that environmental monitoring like many other aspects of environmental management is a reflection of political commitment. Scientific approaches to assessing what i s worth knowing and how data should be collected may attempt to bring some rationality and objectivity to profiles of monitoring activity but there will always be a political and social context which frames and shapes what i s actually undertaken locally. Hence, the environmental information available in any given place will reflect both national and local influences and the prospects for establishing truly comparable information at the locat level in the EU seem poor.

These conclusions have clear implications for the EU. The European Environment Agency is likely to be faced with a significantly more complex, time consuming and expensive task than envisaged at its conception i f it i s to achieve valid comparisons of environmental quality. Thus, while the issue of compliance with EU legislation is likely to receive much more attention in the next few years, as this study has found, the matter of establishing the representativeness of

environmental data leads into a minefield of methodological issues which cannot simply be brushed aside. Compliance should not be seen as a simplistic issue which can be assessed quickly from the basis of published results of monitoring alone. There i s the real danger that those countries in the EU which most seriously address themselves to establishing thorough environmental monitoring and reporting may then lay themselves open to the most prosecution and criticism.

NOTE

The authors acknowledge the contributions to the project of researchers in each of the cities concerned. The analyses and comment given here present the authors’ opinions based on the data as obtained for this study and do not necessarily represent the views or practices of any of the organisations referred to.

REFERENCES

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

Commission of the European Communities (1 990) Green Paper on the Urban Environment, COM (90) 218 Final. Commission of the European Communities (1 992) Fifth Action Programme on the Environment, COM (92) 23 Final: Vols 1-3. Comolet, A. (1 992) ’How OECD Countries Respond to State-of-the Environment Reports’, international Environmental Affairs, Vol. 4, No. 1. Department of Environment (1992a) Urban Air Quality in the UK, First Report of the Quality of Urban Air Review Group, Department of Environment. Department of the Environment (1992a) UK Environment, HMSO London ENDS (1992) ‘Brussels Criticises Lack of NO2 Monitoring in UK’, ENDS Report, No. 210, pp 34-35. Anonymous (1 993) ‘Government Cover-up on Air Pollution’, The Observer, 13th June 1992, p7. Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution (1992) Freshwater Quality, 16th Report, HMSO. Spooner, D., Arnett, R., Justice, M. (1992) ‘Building a Geographical Base for Integrated Pollution Control: Some problems’, Area, Vol. 24, NO. 2, pp 105-1 12.

Duncan Bayliss and Gordon Walker, School of Sciences, Staffordshire University, Leek Rd, Stoke-on-Trent ST4 2DF, UK. Tel: 0782 412515, Fax: 0782 747157.

18 EUROPEAN ENVIRONMENT