Traceable measurements for monitoring critical pollutants under the European Water Framework Directive (WFD) 2000/60/EC

The European Water Framework Directive (WFD) 2000/60/EC specifies a list of 33 priority water pollutants. For these substances, Environmental Quality Standards (EQS), equivalent to the maximum allowable concentrations, had been defined at very low levels. EQS values refer to the whole water body, i.e. include contaminants which are associated to suspended solids or colloids present in the natural water. For several priority pollutants primary analytical methods capable of measuring the target analytes at EQS level in natural water are still missing. The project has developed and validated such methods for three selected compounds, namely Tributyltin (TBT), Polybrominated Diphenylether (PBDE) and Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAH).