First Baltic Symposium Preface

Preface

The First Baltic Symposium on Environmental Chemistry

26-29 September 2001, Tartu, Estonia

Toomas Tenno

Prof. Dr. Toomas Tenno, Chairman of the Organizing Committee of the Symposium, Institute of Physical Chemistry, University of Tartu, Jakobi 2, EE-51014 Tartu, Estonia (tenno@chem.ut.ee)

This issue brings together the research papers from the First Baltic Symposium on Environmental Chemistry, held in Tartu, Estonia from 26 to 29 September 2001. The sympo~ sium was organized under the auspices of the Division of Chemistry and the Environment of the Federation of Euro- pean Chemical Societies. The local organizers were from the Chair of Colloid and Environmental Chemistry of the University of Tartu.

It is my pleasure to note that the First Baltic Symposium was seen to have attracted wide interest. Around 100 high- quality contributions were received. The Scientific Commit- tee of the symposium could put up a total of 75 contribu- tions for oral and poster presentations, 12 of which have been selected for this issue.

During 4 days in Tartu, we had an opportunity to learn and discuss the present state of knowledge and research con- cerning water quality and treatment, soil science, anthropo- genic chemicals and many other topics relevant to environ- mental chemistry.

Considering the fact that the sustainable development de- pends a great deal on environmentally benign processes and products, the symposium started with the special session on green chemistry. The main idea was to introduce how green chemistry and technology can offer solutions to pro- tect environmental quality. The session was organized by Dr. Mihkel Koel from Tallinn Technical University, who is an enthusiastic initiator of scientific work in this area in Estonia. Prof. Dennis Hjeresen from the Green Chemistry Institute (USA), Prof. Duncan Macquarrie from the Uni- versity of York (England) and Prof. Martin Poliakoff from the University of Nottingham (England) were the main speakers of this session.

During the second session, the educational problems in en- vironmental chemistry were discussed. The chairperson of the session was Prof. Uri Zoller from Haifa University (Is- rael). The presentations in the session initiated a lot of ques- tions that reflected a wide interest towards acceptable ap- proaches for the development of environmental education.

The next session on anthropogenic chemicals in the envi- ronment was introduced by Dr. Allan Astrup Jensen (Den-

mark), Prof. Valery Petrosyan (Russia) and Dr. Sirpa Herve (Finland), members of the FECS Division of Chemistry and the Environment. A member of the Division, Prof. Uri Zoller, was the main speaker of the session on water and sediment analysis, quality and treatment.

The last session of the symposium concentrated on soil, con- sidering different aspects of soil quality, analysis and remediation. The presentations dealt with soil pollution with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, nitrates and heavy met- als, as well as with the speciation and bioavailability of met- als, and toxicity and bioavailability of organic pollutants in soil. An interesting presentation by Prof. William Hogland (Sweden), concerned the remediation of old landfill sites. Taking into account that many different contributions to the session on anthropogenic chemicals dealt with soil prob- lems, the problems of soil pollution seem to have become one of the key issues in research during last year. There is a lot of work to do in the area of soil remediation in different countries, particularly in such East European countries as Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia. During the symposium a�89 well, the first meeting of the Subdivision of Soil Chemistry and Pollution was held under the FECS Division of Chemis- try and the Environment.

The above-mentioned themes, as well as the topics of the papers in this special issue, reflect the real multidisciplinari- ty of the research in the field of environmental chemistry. I hope that the symposium encouraged the integration among scientists within the field of environmental research in the Baltic region and that it contributed towards the development of scientific and technical approaches for a better quality of the environment. I also hope that the papers will serve as useful reference material for the par- ticipants, and that they will be of some value to whose who were unable to attend the symposium and who have an interest in the subject.

I would like to thank all the speakers and participants for their contribution to the symposium, as well as the sponsors and co-workers, for their positive attitude and help with organizing the symposium and preparing this issue. Finally, on behalf of the Organizing Committee, I would like to take an opportunity to thank colleagues from the FECS Division of Chemistry and Environment for their kind support.

2 ESPR - Environ Sci & Pollut Res �9 Special Issue 1 (2002): 2 �9 ecomed publishers, D-86899 Landsberg, Germany and Ft. Worth/TX, USA �9 Tokyo, Japan �9 Mumbai, India �9 Seoul, Korea