Hazardous substances in fjords and coastal waters - 2011. Levels, trends and effects. Long-term monitoring of environmental quality in Norwegian coastal waters

Abstract

The Norwegian contribution to OSPAR’s Coordinated Environmental Monitoring Programme (CEMP) includes the monitoring of micropollutants (contaminants) in sediment and marine organisms (blue mussel, snails, prawns, cod, flatfish and deep water fish) along the coast of Norway from the Oslofjord and Hvaler region in the southeast to the Varangerfjord in the northeast. The stations are located both in areas with known or presumed point sources of contaminants, in areas of diffuse load of contamination like city areas, and in more remote areas exposed to presumed low and diffuse pollution. The mussel sites include supplementary stations for the Norwegian Index Programme. The programme includes the monitoring metals, organochlorines, pesticides, dioxins, brominated flame retardants, perfluorinated compounds, as well as biological effects methods. The results from 2011 supplied data to a total of 1035 time series of selected contaminants or biomarkers. Of these, 329 showed statistically significant trends of which 277 were downwards and 52 upwards. The dominance of downward trends indicates that the level of most contaminants is decreasing. Of the 628 median contaminant concentrations assessed in 2011 that could also be classified by Klifs environmental classification system, 78.5% were classified as insignificantly polluted, 16.9% as moderately polluted, 3.5% as markedly polluted (mostly cadmium, lead, chromium, HCB, PAHs), 0.6% as severely polluted (benzo[a]pyrene, carcinogen-PAHs, ppDDE) and 0.5% as extremely polluted (dioxins).