Environmental Quality of Italian Marine Water by Means of Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) Descriptor 9

Abstract

ISPRA, on behalf of the Italian Ministry of Environment, carried out the initial assessment of environmental quality status of the 3 Italian subregions (Mediterranean Sea Region) on Descriptor 9. The approach adopted to define the GES started to verify that contaminants in fish and other seafood for human consumption did not exceed levels established by Community legislation (Reg. 1881/2006 and further updates). As the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) requires to use health tools to assess the environment, Italy decided to adopt a statistical range of acceptance of thresholds identified by national (D.Lgs. 152/2006 concerning water quality required for mussel farms) and international legislation (Reg. 1881/2006 and further updates), which allowed to use the health results and to employ them for the assessment of environmental quality. Italy proposed that Good Environmental Status (GES) is achieved when concentrations are lower than statistical range of acceptance, estimated on samples of fish and fishery products coming from only national waters. GIS-based approach a to perform different integration levels for station, cell’s grid and years, was used; the elaborations allowed to judge the environmental quality good.

MSFD Descriptor 9: Between Health and Environment

“…According to Decision 2010/477/EU [7], Good Environmental Status should be achieved when contaminants are below the levels fixed for human consumption; the absence of human health hazards may however involve environmental pollution effects, since these could be present at lower contaminants concentration. During the IA phase, all substances for which maximum regulatory levels have been laid down for public health reasons in fish, shellfish and other marine products destined for human consumption were examined; moreover number and frequency of contaminants exceeding maximum regulatory levels were calculated [10]. Anyway, existing health monitoring data were not enough to assess Italian marine water under Descriptor 9, so Italy used also results coming from environmental monitoring in order to fill data gaps.…”

“…Human health programs effectively not contemplate seasonal variation, age and sex which influence contaminants' bioavailability in fish and seafood. So higher levels of contaminants concentrations should not automatically be interpreted as a negative status [10].…”

“…In this way the subregion's status was judged by means a spatial integrated response, preventing to assess the outcome of a single sample, as instead requested by human consumption legislations and by OOAO principle [10]. In order to avoid losing information, a statistical range of acceptance was introduced.…”

Assessment of seafood contamination under the marine strategy framework directive: contributions of the German environmental specimen bank

“…There is a link between Descriptors 8 and 9 (Gago et al 2014 ; Law et al 2010 ; Maggi et al 2014 ; Swartenbroux et al 2010 ; Walmsley et al 2017 ; Zampoukas et al 2012 , 2014 ): Because many contaminants are transferred along the food web those of concern to marine fish will likely also be of concern to humans (Fleming et al 2006 ). On the other hand, concentrations exceeding the regulatory levels for food will probably also affect the ecosystem because food regulatory levels are usually higher than thresholds for assessing environmental pollution (Swartenbroux et al 2010 ).…”

Predicting the effectiveness of oil recovery strategies in the marine polluted environment

“…The effects of the acute contaminant exposure and the two recovery strategies was tested on the LH traits of the blue Mediterranean mussel (M. galloprovincialis Lamarck, 1819), one among the most abundant filter feeders in both natural and human hard substrata (e.g. harbours, oil-drilling platform; Andaloro et al, 2011;Maggi et al, 2014;D'Alessandro et al, 2016;. The Sicilian waters were chosen as a target oceanographic area, which is a recognised biodiversity hotspot (Medail and Quezel, 1999) subject to high risk of accidental oil spill because it holds a central crossroad position in the Mediterranean which is the largest oil traffic route in the world (Galgani et al, 2011) and hosts the second largest oil container harbour in Europe (Augusta, Southern Sicily).…”