water.europa.eu Agenda item 7d Report on the quality assessment of the monitoring database Strategic Co-ordination Group November 2010 Madalina David (DG ENV), Bernd Gawlik (JRC) and Mario Carere (IT)

Working Group E Priority Substances, Context Strategic Co-ordination Group, 10 – 11 November 2010

Working Group E Priority Substances, Objective Strategic Co-ordination Group, 10 – 11 November 2010  allow a quick identification of  summary by country (each country identified by a code) to identify strength and weaknesses of the respective datasets in comparison to the complete database  steer future improvement of quality of collected data for future purposes Quality of analytical Method (standardisation, protocol) Quality of analytical result (QA/QC, LOQ distribution) Quality of reporting Data quality

Working Group E Priority Substances, Overall quality of reporting  a commonly defined template  a software tool used ( SE-end-user-tool/) SE-end-user-tool/ Strategic Co-ordination Group, 10 – 11 November 2010  the level of quality of information is varying considerably (geographical, water category, matrix and temporal distribution)  good quality may be jeopardized by a lack of scrutiny when reporting

Working Group E Priority Substances,  the quality of monitoring data can be properly assessed from supplementary information that accompanies the measurements  < 1/2 countries have provided a significant percentage of data with both information on LoD and LoQ  it introduces an additional uncertainty when the respective datasets are used together  15 countries from 28 provided information on the analytical methods and 80% use non-standardised methods  plausibility statistics: very low number of analytical results are considered suspicious, whereas a significant proportion of the LoQ are considered suspicious when compared with a benchmark (e.g. organic substances) Strategic Co-ordination Group, 10 – 11 November 2010 Overall quality of data provided

Working Group E Priority Substances, Strategic Co-ordination Group, 10 – 11 November 2010 Quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) Directive 2009/90/EC Existing Priority Substances

Working Group E Priority Substances, LoQ distribution Annex I of the Report: LoQ distribution for substances ranked high and very high + 68 substances monitored in more than 3 countries Strategic Co-ordination Group, 10 – 11 November 2010 PEC = predicted environmental concentrations PNEC = predicted no-effect concentration PEC2 = measurements < LoQ (LoQ/2) PEC1 = measurements > LoQ for some substances, on which the PNEC is known, the monitoring methods need to be improved

Working Group E Priority Substances, classes LoQ distribution Annex II of the Report: LoQ distribution for substances monitored in more than 11 countries Strategic Co-ordination Group, 10 – 11 November 2010 wide range of LoQs suggests some monitoring methods are not appropriate

Working Group E Priority Substances, Strategic Co-ordination Group, 10 – 11 November 2010 Follow-up  main areas for improvement: way of reporting of analytical results; adequate implementation of requirements of the QA/QC Directive, in particular as regards the quality management of labs (participation in proficiency testing programmes, use of certified reference materials, measurement of uncertainties); use of standardised and appropriate analytical methods; careful consideration to the monitoring of sediment and biota and then what to do…..?

Working Group E Priority Substances, Community Laboratory Network  make use of a so-called “Community Laboratory Network” Coordinate the existing structures virtual structure (virtual structure with a secretariat run by the JRC as co-chair of CMEP sub-group) Developed in the context of the CMEP sub-group (no additional meetings) reporting to WGE Facilitate information exchange and gathering for expert group Collect and integrate ongoing projects and initiatives Liaise, if appropriate, to adjacent policy areas and initiatives (Chemicals, Marine, Waste, etc.) Strategic Co-ordination Group, 10 – 11 November 2010 Proposal for discussion Competent Authorities Research Centres Standardisation Bodies Accreditation Bodies Existing Scientific Networks

Working Group E Priority Substances,  use CMEP sub-group to take forward some of recommendations made in the report according to the mandate endorsed by the SCG and WDs  further discussions are planned for November meeting of the CMEP b u t ……….  10 MSs/27 (BE, CZ, FI, FR, DE, IT, LU, NL, SE and UK) committed to provide an active contribution to different task of the CMEP Strategic Co-ordination Group, 10 – 11 November 2010 Proposal

Working Group E Priority Substances, Strategic Co-ordination Group members are invited to: To take note of the findings of the report and proposed follow-up Make available resources at the expert level during to support the activity of the CMEP sub-group Strategic Co-ordination Group, 10 – 11 November 2010

Working Group E Priority Substances, Thanks for your attention…. Strategic Co-ordination Group, 10 – 11 November 2010