EAQC_WISE - Overview-FP6

The 6th Framework Programme and the Priority 8
The 8th Priority of the 6th Framework Programme promotes activities in support of the development and implementation of EU policies. Among the main objectives of this Priority, the section 1.1.5 is dealing with “environmental assessment (soil, water, air, noise, including the effects of chemical substances)”. In this frame, the proposed research intends to contribute, in particular, to the implementation and development of 6th Environment Action Plan, the Kyoto Protocol, the fuel directive on petrol and diesel, the noise policy, the soil strategy, the waste policy, the directive 86/278 on sewage sludge and soil, the Common Implementation Strategy (2000/60/EC) of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) and the 1976 Bathing Water Quality Directive.

Coverage of Priority 8 activities in support of EU water and soil policies
One of the topics relevant to water and soil policies deals with the need of an European analytical quality control scheme for water, sediment and soil analysis for the achievement of the comparability of analytical data at European scale (Task 8 of sub-priority 1.5). The objective of the defined topic is built up on the requirements of the Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC) for the monitoring of ecological, chemical and biological status of surface waters (including biota and sediment analyses) and of chemical status of groundwater (including interactions with soils) and on the orientations of the future EU soil policy related-monitoring programmes.
The Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC) sets the objective to prevent deterioration in status of all Community waters (i.e. both surface- and groundwaters, as well as coastal waters) and to ensure achievement and maintenance of their good status by 2015. The implementation of the Directive will be based on river basin management plans.
It includes the design of monitoring programmes to be carried out by all Member States. The effectiveness of these programmes, and hence of the overall Directive implementation, will highly depend on the ability of laboratories in Member States to measure ecological, biological and chemical properties of Community waters. Besides the WFD, the thematic strategy on soil protection calls for the development of a policy framework which will regulate, in particular, soil contamination aspects in the context of which common monitoring strategies will need to be developed. In this view, measurement data will represent the foundation of the water and soil quality evaluation system, on the basis of which decisions will be taken on the programme of measures required to achieve WFD environmental objectives. Therefore, this objective must take into account the need of development of measurement strategies, methodologies and techniques, with emphasis on quality control systemic aspects. The development of an Analytical Quality Control system working at European level and tailor-made in support to the implementation of the WFD implies that a survey of existing QA/QC tools, national systems or structures should be carried out and that additional research should be undertaken to complete these data and to built a pilot AQC system that fulfil the requirements of the WFD.
The defined topic stresses that the research outputs should enable to demonstrate data comparability and equivalence of measurement procedures among the participating laboratories in all Member States. Therefore, the project will be carried out at European level, involving a range of actors (research institutes, governmental agencies, monitoring institutes, tool developers and providers (proficiency testing schemes or reference materials), training facilities and policy implementers.
Demonstration cases will be carried out at European scale and /or at River basin scale using priority pollutants of surface waters and/or pollutants of Annex VIII of the WFD for groundwater. The defined time frame indicates that, at the EU level, more than 120 river basin districts will start monitoring at the beginning of 2007 for a wide range of (surface and ground-) water bodies, on the basis of which programmes of measures will be designed for the first river basin management plans at the end of 2009. Thus the duration of this project will be 36 months.

http://ec.europa.eu/research/fp6/index_en.cfm?p=0_newsite