Gaps in knowledge : Monitoring programmes should be developed in order to … monitor the state of the environment and trends.

LONG-TERM ACTIONS (10 years) The Commission will support the collection of existing data on POPs and the setting up of a GIS for the selected indicators. This GIS will be integrated in the global environment GIS strategies. Consequently "hot spots" of high contamination levels will be identified

LONG-TERM ACTIONS (10 years) The Commission will conduct surveys and measurements of the status and trends of the contamination in order to measure progress in reducing the presence of dioxins and PCBs in the environment

Soil : The Commission will establish the cartography of highly polluted soils and sediments with POPs. A complete map with accurate results can be only foreseen within 5-10 years.

Words such as contamination, contaminated, pollution or polluted occur in this 35-page document 104-times.

In the 1960s/70s, some western European countries started taking measures to eliminate sources of POPs such as dioxins or at least to reduce POPs formation. POPs levels have started to drop in the environment and food of those countries.

Based on the national and EU legislation, the Stockholm Convention on POPs and the Protocol on POPs to the Convention on Long Range Transboundary Air Pollution, the new EU MSs & CCs have also started to take the measures. Only limited data is available in these countries on the effectiveness of the measures, i.e. whether the levels in the environment, feed, food, and human population have declined.

Soil is very heterogeneous matrix, but is useful as a terrestrial indicator of environmental pollution. Because the response time of soils to changes in inputs is long, POPs content in topsoil may mirror environmental contamination in the course of a period of many years. However, since dried soil samples are suitable for archiving, properly stored historical soil samples could carry useful information on POPs long-term time trends in the environment.

What is our goal? To find archived soil samples in the new EU MSs and CCs : that have been collected ideally from identical locations and in a span of several decades that have been taken from an upper soil layer of 0 – max 30 cm on which there is additional data such as the type of soil, physical and chemical characteristics, soil amendments

What is our goal? Based on information from the owners of archived soils, to draw up a database on these samples. To compile the data to prepare a report. To provide the report to the Commission (DG Environment) to raise its interest in this issue with the aim of publishing a call to a project focused on POPs time trends.

establishment of Network on Time Trends of Pollutants in the Environment of New EU Member States and Candidate Countries All day meeting on 9 December 2004 at the JRC Ispra devoted to

To date the following countries are going to present more detailed information on their archived soil samples: Czech Republic Central Institute for Supervising and Testing in Agriculture Research Institute of Ameliorations and Soil Conservation Estonia Estonian Agricultural University, Faculty of Agronomy Hungary Research Institute for Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry Poland Institute of Soil Science and Plant Cultivation Romania Research Institute for Soil Science and Agrochemistry Slovakia Soil Science and Conservation Research Institute

No or little information on archived soils from: Bulgaria (Nikola V. Kolev) Latvia (Aldis Karklins) Cyprus (no response) Croatia (Ferdo Basic) Lithuania (Vanda V. Buividaite) Malta (Sonya Sammut) Slovenia (Marko Zupan) Turkey (Selim Kapur)