Developing a groundwater watch list for substances of emerging concern: a European perspective

There is growing concern globally about the occurrence of anthropogenic organic contaminants in the environment, including pharmaceuticals and personal care products. This concern extends to groundwater which is a critical water resource in Europe and its protection is a priority for the European Commission and European Union (EU) Member States. Maintaining good groundwater status supports improved public health, economic growth and sustains groundwater dependant ecosystems. A range of measures have been introduced for regulating several substances that have impacted groundwater (e.g. nitrate and pesticides). However, these measures only cover a small fraction of anthropogenic substances that could pollute groundwater. Monitoring for these unregulated substances is currently very limited or not carried out at all. Therefore, a coordinated European-wide approach is needed to identify, monitor and characterise priority substances or groups of substances that have the potential to pollute groundwater. This evidence base is critical for policy development and controls on these currently unregulated substances. The European Commission highlighted this as a need during the review of the EU Groundwater Directive Annexes in 2014, when the requirement to develop a Groundwater Watch List (GWWL) was established. This paper describes the approach that has been developed through a voluntary initiative as part of the EU CIS Working Group Groundwater to establish the voluntary EU GWWL. The process for developing the GWWL is one that has brought together researchers, regulators and industry, and is described here for the first time. A summary of the key principles behind the methodology is presented as well as results from pilot studies using per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances and pharmaceuticals. These explore and support the viability of the GWWL process, an important step towards its adoption and its future use for groundwater protection across Europe

Introducing evolutionary biologists to the analysis of big data: guidelines to organize extended bioinformatics training courses

Research in evolutionary biology has been progressively influenced by big data such as massive genome and transcriptome sequencing data, scalar measurements of several phenotypes on tens to thousands of individuals, as well as from collecting worldwide environmental data at an increasingly detailed scale. The handling and analysis of such data require computational skills that usually exceed the abilities of most traditionally trained evolutionary biologists. Here we discuss the advantages, challenges and considerations for organizing and running bioinformatics training courses of 2–3 weeks in length to introduce evolutionary biologists to the computational analysis of big data. Extended courses have the advantage of offering trainees the opportunity to learn a more comprehensive set of complementary topics and skills and allowing for more time to practice newly acquired competences. Many organizational aspects are common to any course, as the need to define precise learning objectives and the selection of appropriate and highly motivated instructors and trainees, among others. However, other features assume particular importance in extended bioinformatics training courses. To successfully implement a learning-by-doing philosophy, sufficient and enthusiastic teaching assistants (TAs) are necessary to offer prompt help to trainees. Further, a good balance between theoretical background and practice time needs to be provided and assured that the schedule includes enough flexibility for extra review sessions or further discussions if desired. A final project enables trainees to apply their newly learned skills to real data or case studies of their interest. To promote a friendly atmosphere throughout the course and to build a close-knit community after the course, allow time for some scientific discussions and social activities. In addition, to not exhaust trainees and TAs, some leisure time needs to be organized. Finally, all organization should be done while keeping the budget within fair limits. In order to create a sustainable course that constantly improves and adapts to the trainees’ needs, gathering short- and long-term feedback after the end of the course is important. Based on our experience we have collected a set of recommendations to effectively organize and run extended bioinformatics training courses for evolutionary biologists, which we here want to share with the community. They offer a complementary way for the practical teaching of modern evolutionary biology and reaching out to the biological community.Peer reviewe

Radionuclides in groundwater, rocks and stream sediments in Austria—results from a recent survey

The explanatory notes `Erläuterungen zur Geologischen Themenkarte Radionuklide in Grundwässern, Gesteinen und Bachsedimenten Österreichs 1:500 000' (Berka et al. 2014b) documents the source of the measurements displayed on the map and give some interpretation. It should be pointed out that table 4.3 in these explanatory notes gives citations concerning the uranium mineralisations displayed in the map and table 4.7 concerning the uranium whole rock analyses shown in it

Radionuclides in groundwater, rocks and stream sediments in Austria—results from a recent survey

The explanatory notes `Erläuterungen zur Geologischen Themenkarte Radionuklide in Grundwässern, Gesteinen und Bachsedimenten Österreichs 1:500 000' (Berka et al. 2014b) documents the source of the measurements displayed on the map and give some interpretation. It should be pointed out that table 4.3 in these explanatory notes gives citations concerning the uranium mineralisations displayed in the map and table 4.7 concerning the uranium whole rock analyses shown in it

Radionuclides in groundwater, rocks and stream sediments in Austria—results from a recent survey

The map `Radionuklide in Grundwässern, Gesteinen und Bachsedimenten Österreichs 1:500 000' (Berka et al. 2014a) shows the uranium content of the underground (`Gesteinschemie' = whole rock analyses, `Bachsedimente' = stream sediments) as well as the groundwater's content of uranium-238, radium-226, lead-210, polonium-210 and radium-228 (`Grundwasserdaten'). The stream sediment analyses displayed on the map are the maximum values within a cell size of 7.5 km (like in fig. 18). Furthermore the map displays published uranium mineralisations (`Uran-Mineralisationen') in Austria. In the geological legend also frequency diagrams of the geological units' uranium concentrations in stream sediments are displayed