Classification of ‘chemical status’ in Danish marine waters. A pilot study

Abstract

We report the testing and demonstration of an updated version of the CHASE tool (the HELCOM/HARMONY Chemical Status Assessment Tool) in Danish marine waters leading to a classification of ‘chemical status’. The classification is based on non-normalized data from monitoring of hazardous substances under the Danish National Aquatic Monitoring and Assessment Program, i.e. the marine sub-program. Since the classifications are based on un-normalized data, the results should be considered provisional. The background for the work is a wish by the EMODnet Chemistry project to test a tool combining data with a known quality and to tentatively map ‘problem areas’ and ‘non-problem areas’ with respect to contaminants in the marine environment. Following up on this work, next steps would include normalization of data (for sediments with respect to the content of organic matter and for biota with respect to lipid content). In a long-term perspective, we have demonstrated ‘the power of combining data’ and hopefully paved the road for a wider use of multi-metric indicator-based assessment tools.