General Information

The objectives of the monitoring activities implemented as part of MED POL Phase III are:

• to present periodical assessments of the state of the environment in hot spots and coastal areas (needed to provide information for decision makers on the basic environmental status of the areas which are under anthropogenic pressures);
• to determine temporal trends of some selected contaminants in order to assess the effectiveness of actions and policy measures, and
• to enhance the control of pollution by means of compliance to national/international regulatory limits.

  As for the trend-monitoring component, this aims at detecting site-specific temporal trends of selected contaminants at hot spots and coastal/reference areas. Trend monitoring of loads aims to provide estimates of inputs of some major groups of pollutants, hazardous substances and nutrients (all listed in the Land Based-Sources Protocol) to the coastal marine environment via point (rivers, municipal and industrial effluents) sources.

  Biological effects monitoring (monitoring with biomarkers) has been included in the monitoring programmes as a pilot activity to test the methodology to be used as an early-warning tool to detect any destructive effects of pollutants to the organisms at the initial stage of exposures.

  A new component regarding the monitoring of the eutrophication in the Mediterranean is being included in MED POL monitoring programme. The eutrophication monitoring strategy was approved in 2003. The monitoring sites of interest will be those where eutrophication phenomena are common and, in addition, potentially risk areas under the direct impact of anthropogenic nutrient and organic material inputs.

  Compliance monitoring, referred to health-related conditions in bathing and shellfish/aquaculture waters, effluents and hot spots, supports the pollution control component. In order to fully achieve the objectives of this component, countries are encouraged to prepare compliance reports by comparing the results of the monitoring with the existing limit values of their national and/or the international and regional legislations.

  Monitoring Agreements prepared with these objectives (also covering the general description of the National Monitoring Programmes) are based on a certain monitoring criteria (parameters, matrices, sampling frequencies etc) including list of pollution hot spots and coastal stations and participating institutes. Eleven monitoring agreements have been already signed during 1999-2004 period with the next countries: Albania, Algeria, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Israel, Morocco, Slovenia, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey.

  MED POL Phase III Monitoring sites

  

  The present status of spatial coverage of monitoring activities can be seen through general maps. 

  Monitoring Agreements made with the countries stipulate periodical reporting of monitoring data to the MED POL Unit. Counties with ongoing programmes have already submitted most of their monitoring data to the MED POL unit. Starting from 2001 reporting, data are collected in standardized formats.