Monitoring priority substances of directives 76/464/EEC and 2000/60/EC in Greek water bodies

The priority substances of List I, 76/464/EEC Directive, some of which belong to the new Water Framework Directive 2000/60/EC, have been monitored in the surface waters of Greece through the developed network of 53 sampling stations. The analytical methods used for the determination of these substances included Purge and Trap-Gas chromatography-Mass spectrometry for volatile and semivolatile organic compounds, Gas Chromatography-Electron Capture Detection for organochlorine insecticides, High Performance Liquid Chromatography for pentachlorophenol and Atomic Absorption Spectrometry for metals. The results have shown the presence of several priority substances in Greek surface waters, in most cases at concentrations well below the regulatory limits. However, non-compliance was observed for a limited number of compounds. The monitoring network and the analytical determinations have to be expanded to more water bodies and more priority substances, in order to safeguard the quality of Greek surface waters.     

Coupling Socioeconomic and Lake Systems for Sustainability: A Conceptual Analysis Using Lake St. Clair Region as a Case Study

Applying sustainability at an operational level requires understanding the linkages between socioeconomic and natural systems. We identified linkages in a case study of the Lake St. Clair (LSC) region, part of the Laurentian Great Lakes system. Our research phases included: (1) investigating and revising existing coupled human and natural systems frameworks to develop a framework for this case study; (2) testing and refining the framework by hosting a 1-day stakeholder workshop and (3) creating a causal loop diagram (CLD) to illustrate the relationships among the systems’ key components. With stakeholder assistance, we identified four interrelated pathways that include water use and discharge, land use, tourism and shipping that impact the ecological condition of LSC. The interrelationships between the pathways of water use and tourism are further illustrated by a CLD with several feedback loops. We suggest that this holistic approach can be applied to other case studies and inspire the development of dynamic models capable of informing decision making for sustainability.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s13280-013-0432-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

Spatial characterization of the Baltic sea drainage basin and its unmonitored catchments

We present an updated, harmonized hydrologic base map of the entire Baltic Sea Drainage Basin (BSDB), including 634 subdrainage basins. The updated map has a level of detail approximately 5 to 10 times higher than the current standard and includes various spatial-aggregation possibilities of relevance for water management. All 634 subdrainage basins and their various spatial aggregations are characterized in terms of population, land cover, drainage density, and slope. We identify, quantify, and characterize, in particular, drainage basins that are unmonitored with regard to the combination of water-flow and nutrient-concentration measurements needed to monitor coastal nutrient and pollutant loading. Results indicate that out of a total BSDB population of 84 239 000 in 2002, 24% lived in unmonitored coastal drainage basins that cover 13% of the total BSDB area. A more detailed analysis of Swedish catchments indicates that Sweden has a particularly large proportion of unmonitored coastal catchment areas (20% of the total Swedish area) with high population pressures (55% of the total Swedish population), when compared with average conditions for the whole BSDB. In general, the investigated characteristics of unmonitored coastal basins vary and differ largely from those in adjacent monitored drainage basins within the BSDB.     

Monitoring of triazine and phenylurea herbicides in the surface waters of Greece

A large-scale study was implemented to monitor triazine and phenylurea herbicides in the main surface water bodies of continental Greece from October 1998 to September 1999. Samples from 10 rivers and 7 lakes were analyzed for the presence of five triazine (atrazine, cyanazine, prometryne, simazine, terbuthylazine) and five phenylurea (chlorotoluron, diuron, linuron, metobromuron, monolinuron) herbicides. The samples were extracted with C18 cartridges and analyzed by high-performance liquid chromatography-diode array detection (HPLC-DAD). The most frequently detected herbicides were atrazine, followed by prometryne, cyanazine, and simazine. The concentrations of the compounds were generally low (< 0.78 micro g/L) and are not considered harmful for the freshwater ecosystem. Most of the positive samples were taken from the water bodies of northern Greece where agricultural activity is more intense.     

Does Divergence of Nutrient Load Measurements Matter for Successful Mitigation of Marine Eutrophication?

Successful implementation of an international nutrient abatement agreement, such as the Baltic Sea Action Plan (BSAP), requires consistent understanding of the baseline nutrient loads, and a perception of acceptable costs and fairness in targeted reductions of these base line loads. This article presents a general framework for identifying the implications of divergence between different nutrient load quantification approaches, with regard to both cost and fairness criteria outcomes, for the international agreement to decrease nutrient loads into the Baltic Sea as presented in the BSAP. The results indicate that even relatively small divergence in the nutrient load quantification translates into relatively large differences in abatement cost for different Baltic Sea countries. A robust result, irrespective of differences in nutrient load assessments, is a conflict between abatement cost effectiveness and fairness, with relatively poor countries facing heavy abatement cost burdens for cost-effective international load abatement.     

Incorporating detectability of threatened species into environmental impact assessment

Environmental impact assessment (EIA) is a key mechanism for protecting threatened plant and animal species. Many species are not perfectly detectable and, even when present, may remain undetected during EIA surveys, increasing the risk of site‐level loss or extinction of species. Numerous methods now exist for estimating detectability of plants and animals. Despite this, regulations concerning survey protocol and effort during EIAs fail to adequately address issues of detectability. Probability of detection is intrinsically linked to survey effort; thus, minimum survey effort requirements are a useful way to address the risks of false absences. We utilized 2 methods for determining appropriate survey effort requirements during EIA surveys. One method determined the survey effort required to achieve a probability of detection of 0.95 when the species is present. The second method estimated the survey effort required to either detect the species or reduce the probability of presence to 0.05. We applied these methods to Pimelea spinscens subsp. spinescens, a critically endangered grassland plant species in Melbourne, Australia. We detected P. spinescens in only half of the surveys undertaken at sites where it was known to exist. Estimates of the survey effort required to detect the species or demonstrate its absence with any confidence were much higher than the effort traditionally invested in EIA surveys for this species. We argue that minimum survey requirements be established for all species listed under threatened species legislation and hope that our findings will provide an impetus for collecting, compiling, and synthesizing quantitative detectability estimates for a broad range of plant and animal species. Incorporación de la Capacidad de Detectar una Especie Amenazada a la Evaluación de Impacto Ambiental     

Genetic diversity in two barnacle species, <Emphasis Type="Italic">Chthamalus stellatus</Emphasis> and <Emphasis Type="Italic">Tesseropora atlantica</Emphasis> (Crustacea,Cirripedia), with different larval dispersal modes in the archipelago of the Azores

ISSRs (Inter Simple Sequence Repeats) were employed to compare the genetic structure of Chthamalus stellatus and Tesseropora atlantica in the Azores. The two barnacles differ as regards life cycle: the former conducting pelagic life for about 22 days, the latter for only 24 h. Thirty individuals of each species were analysed from four locations of three Azorean islands. Five ISSR primers produced, respectively, 117 and 79 polymorphic bands in C. stellatus and T. atlantica. Estimates of among-samples genetic diversity suggested extensive connectivity in the former species and isolation in the latter. AMOVA further supported these results by attributing 2% of genetic variance to the among-islands component of C. stellatus and 30% to T. atlantica. Results are consistent with expectations based on species life history and corroborate the importance of pelagic stages in determining the degree of genetic structuring in benthic marine invertebrates.     

Temporal trends (1990-2000) in the concentration of cadmium, lead and mercury in mosses across Europe

The European heavy metals in mosses survey provides data on the concentration of 10 heavy metals in naturally growing mosses. The survey has been repeated at five-yearly intervals and in this paper we report on the temporal trends in the concentration of cadmium, lead and mercury between 1990 and 2000. Metal- and country-specific temporal trends were observed. In general, the concentration of lead and cadmium in mosses decreased between 1990 and 2000; the decline was higher for lead than cadmium. For mercury not enough data were available to establish temporal trends between 1990 and 1995, but between 1995 and 2000 the mercury concentration in mosses did not change across Europe. The observed temporal trends for the concentrations in mosses were similar to the trends reported for the modelled total deposition of cadmium, lead and mercury in Europe.     

Climate change effects on the Baltic Sea borderland between land and sea

Coastal habitats are situated on the border between land and sea, and ecosystem structure and functioning is influenced by both marine and terrestrial processes. Despite this, most scientific studies and monitoring are conducted either with a terrestrial or an aquatic focus. To address issues concerning climate change impacts in coastal areas, a cross-ecosystem approach is necessary. Since habitats along the Baltic coastlines vary in hydrology, natural geography, and ecology, climate change projections for Baltic shore ecosystems are bound to be highly speculative. Societal responses to climate change in the Baltic coastal ecosystems should have an ecosystem approach and match the biophysical realities of the Baltic Sea area. Knowledge about ecosystem processes and their responses to a changing climate should be integrated within the decision process, both locally and nationally, in order to increase the awareness of, and to prepare for climate change impacts in coastal areas of the Baltic Sea.