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Environmental Quality Standards (EQS)
"Environmental
quality standard" (EQS) means the concentration of a particular pollutant or
group of pollutants in water, sediment (any
material transported by water and settled to the bottom) or biota (all living organisms of an area) which
should not be exceeded in order to protect human health and the environment.
The Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC), one of the most important pieces of European environmental legislation in recent years, requires that all inland and coastal waters achieve ‘‘good status’’ by 2015. Article 16 of the Directive describes how and by when Environmental Quality Standards (EQS) for pollutants should be developed, and states that pollutants presenting a significant risk to or via water should be identified by the European Commission and classified as priority substances, with the most hazardous of these classified as priority hazardous substances. The directive also foresees the design of the most cost-effective set of measures aimed at achieving load reduction of those substances, taking into account both product and process sources.
Thus a directive (2008/105/EC) was approved to establish "Environmental Quality Standard" (EQS) limits for 33 priority substances and 8 priority hazardous substances in surface waters, but also, for some of these compounds, in sediment and biota.
EU Member States must
ensure compliance with the Environmental Quality Standards,
and verify that the concentration of substances concerned does not increase
significantly in sediments and/or the relevant biota.
JRC-IHCP's
activities
Generation
of ecotoxicity test data is one option for filling gaps when deriving EQS, but there are also options that
avoid testing, such as the use of (Quantitative) Structure Activity
Relationships (QSARs), Quantitative Structure-Property Relationships (QSPRs),
Activity-Activity Relationships (AARs), Quantitative Structure Activity-
Activity Relationships, or read-across from similar substances. All of these
non-testing methods are based on the idea that properties (including biological
activities) of a chemical substance depend on its intrinsic nature and can be
directly predicted from its molecular structure and inferred from the
properties of similar compounds whose activities are known.
Methodology
To derive EQS for priority substances, a specific methodology has been
conceived, which will be implemented by competent authorities of EU Member
States in order to comply with the EU legislation in 2011. Other European countries are also interested in this exercise, especially the so-called candidate and potential candidate countries. Thus
there is a need of providing specialised training courses to interested stakeholders.
Training
competent authorities in EU Member States and in countries eligible for the JRC Enlargement and Integration Action [1]. In 2011, a practical course on environmental quality standards (EQS) derivation in water, sediment and biota has been held in Somma Lombardo (Varese, Italy).
Useful links:
Directive 2000/60/EC (Water Framework Directive) -
consolidated version, of documentary value only)- Water Framework Directive web site (by Directorate-General for Environment)
- Directive 2008/105/EC on environmental quality
standards in the field of water policy
[1] Serbia, Montenegro, FYROM (Macedonia), Albania, Bosnia, Croatia, Switzerland, Turkey, Israel, and Iceland. The Joint Research Centre (JRC) gives scientific and technical support to countries on the road towards EU membership, new member states and associated countries. It supports the transfer of the EU legal framework (acquis communautaire) to national legislation and facilitates scientific and technical exchange.
