Scenario analysis of pollutants loads to European regional seas for the year 2020. Part II: Assessment of priority chemicals – an example with three pilot substances

In order to support the implementation of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive, DG Environment and the Joint Research Centre joined to carry out a study on the expected cumulative impact of existing EU environmental legislation on the quality of the marine environment, with specific reference to the case of aquatic discharges to the European seas. The report describes a few scenario analyses affecting emissions to the European regional seas up to 2020 for Lindane, Trifluralin and Perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) taken as pilot substances. The scenarios developed are agreed with stakeholders at DG ENV following some preparatory meetings. The scenarios do not intend be exhaustive, but examples of what can be further achieved making use of the modelling and database development made in the different phases of the project. For Lindane, the model estimated European sea load of 745 tons per 1995, based on the official emission data provided by EMEP, appears to be reduced by 98.3% in 2005, ten years after the start of the EU regulations for γ-HCH. Besides, under the BAU scenario, a Lindane sea load of ca.12.5 tons per year should be expected. The trend and ban scenarios support, respectively, a reduction of the load to the European seas in 2020 by 74% and 95% when compared to the BAU estimate. Aimed at Trifluralin, according to the BAU scenario, an annual load of ca.61.7 tones is estimated in 2020. However, this is an overestimation, because the aggregated emission data of EUROSTAT for the agriculture use of the entire group of dinitroaniline herbicides in for EU25 have been considered as model input data. The complete ban scenario forecasts ca. 0.07 t/y and in practice eliminates the concern about loads of Trifluralin to European seas to a negligible level in a time-frame of one year due to degradation in soil. Considering PFOS under BAU scenario conditions the total sea load from all European contries is estimated to be 5.8 tons per year. The model forecasts approximately a half of this amount when a 50% reduction of emissions takes place.JRC.H.1-Water Resource

Assessment of Persistent Organic Pollutants load to marine environment by MAPPE-Global model focusing on European regional seas

MAPPE-Global modeling tool belongs to the group of the global box models for environmental fate and transport of POPs. The estimated error level of MAPPE-Global is about a factor of two, which suggests that the model could be considered as a tool for a screening or initial evaluation of chemical risk for POPs at global scale. The verified MAPPE-Global is applied in practical assessments of chemical loads to the European regional seas. The PCBs case study relates to a sum of 22 congeners and considers two emission scenarios: first - the current status relative to the 2010 year; second – a future projection corresponding to the 2020 year. The total amount of 22PCBs released to air equals to 101.03 t for year 2010 and to 50.2 t for year 2020, respectively. The Baseline scenario for Lindane assumes, for the reference year 2005, 86.6 t atmospheric emissions only from European sources and omits the impact of the long range atmospheric transport. The second scenario for Lindane aims to targeting the situation in the year 2020. This scenario (denoted as LRT) suggests no emissions to atmosphere from any European origin due to the banning of this substance but admits that Europe is affected by an unavoidable „import” of 5.4 t Lindane through trans-continental air transport. According to the MAPPE-Global model, the extended European area is exporting to the marine water 3.7 t of 22PCBs in 2010 and 1.9 t in 2020, respectively. In both scenarios, the most affected seas are the Mediterranean Sea (ca.35% from the total) followed by Northern (ca. 21.5%) and Black sea (ca. 19%). It was estimated that the European seas receive by atmospheric deposition about 7.9 t of 22PCBs in 2010 and ca. 4t in 2020. This is two times more when comparing to the entire riverine discharge of 22PCBs for these years. MAPPE-Global forecasts 10.1 t riverine sea load of Lindane under the Baseline scenario and 0.26t in the case of LRT meaning 97% reduction compared to the baseline option. The highest discharges are observed for Atlantic Ocean – in Baseline scenario 2.2t (21.8% from the total) and for LRT 0.06t (23%); and Mediterranean Sea - Baseline 3.5t (34.7%) and LRT 0.04t (15.4%). For the gamma-HCH, likewise for the PCBs, it is found that the atmospheric deposition over the European seas dominate the river input to the coastal zone. Under the Baseline scenario, the total air deposition (50.2t/y) is about 5 times higher than the riverine component of the sea load. Potentially the outcome of MAPPE-Global model could serve in the assessments of different policy options related to the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) or Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) as well as to support the implementation of the European sea conventions as HELCOM (Baltic Sea), OSPAR (North-East Atlantic), MEDPOL (Mediterranean Sea) and BSC (Black Sea).JRC.H.1-Water Resource

Multimedia assessment of pollutant pathways in the environment: a Global scale model

The report describes the assumptions, equations and a few examples of preliminary applications of a global spatial steady-state box model entitled Multimedia Assessment of Pollutant Pathways in the Environment (MAPPE-Global). The model grounds on the concept of already developed European version of MAPPE chemical fate model. MAPPE-Global computes the removal rates of a substance with given physical-chemical properties in an evaluative environment for the Globe with a resolution of 1x1 degree considering atmosphere, land (natural and agriculture soils, forests, impervious surfaces, frozen territories), surface water (including lakes, inland wetlands and reservoirs) and oceans and seas. MAPPE-Global is able to consider chemical emissions in one or more of the environmental compartments and estimates chemical concentrations and fluxes accounting chemical partitioning (gas, liquid or solid), degradation, advective and diffusive transport. At this stage, MAPPE Global does not explicitly compute chemical transport in space, but only the fate of a substance at each location in space. However, the model estimates for each grid cell the mass fluxes of chemical that are available for transport inside or outside of the cell, in addition to concentrations from local emissions. Thus, MAPPE Global is developed specifically to respond questions as: • How will a chemical spread across different media in the different climatic and landscape settings? • How important is the variability of environmental processes in determining the fate of chemicals across the globe? In addition, the model enables estimating, for virtually any location in the world, representative parameters of the environmental removal rates that determine the fate of a contaminant. These rates may be used to feed a zero-dimensional time-dependent model that allows computing the main receptors of the chemical emissions. Besides, in order to evaluate the performance of the MAPPE-Global model a comparison with established models, such as Impact World and USEtox was made by crosschecking of the intermedia removal rate coefficients. Finally, MAPPE-Global was used to quantify for a set of 34 representative pollutants at global scale the range of variability of chemical removal rates for the different environmental compartments and to identify the fate patterns of flyers, swimmers, soil-bound and multimedia chemical substances.JRC.H.5-Rural, water and ecosystem resource

Technology and Process Design for Phenols Recovery from Industrial Chicory (Chicorium intybus) Leftovers

Vegetal leftovers from the agro–food industry represent a huge source of primary and secondary metabolites, vitamin, mineral salts and soluble as well as insoluble fibers. Economic reports on the growth in the polyphenol market have driven us to focus our investigation on chicory (Chicorium intybus L.), which is one of the most popular horticultural plants in the world and a rich source of phenolic compounds. Ultrasound-assisted extraction (UAE), microwave-assisted extraction (MAE) and their simultaneous combination, using either ethanol/water or water alone (also sub-critical), have been investigated with the aim of designing a green and efficient extraction process. Higher total-polyphenol yields as well as dramatic reductions in extraction times and solvent consumption have been obtained under these conditions. ANOVA test for analyses of variance followed by the Tukey honestly significant difference (HSD) post-hoc test of multiple comparisons was used in the statistical analysis. MAE experiments performed with sub-critical water, and MW/US experiments with an ethanol solution have shown polyphenol recovery values of up to ~3 g of gallic acid equivalents (GAE) per kg of fresh material in only 15 min, while conventional extraction required 240 min to obtain the same result

Production of polyhydroxybutyrate by the cyanobacterium cf. Anabaena sp

Polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) production by the cyanobacterium cf. Anabaena sp. was here studied by varying the medium composition and the carbon source used to induce mixotrophic growth conditions. The highest PHB productivity (0.06 gPHB gbiomass−1 d−1) was observed when cultivating cf. Anabaena sp. in phosphorus-free medium and in the presence of sodium acetate (5.0 g L−1 concentration), after an incubation period of 7 days. A content of 40% of PHB on biomass, a dry weight of 0.1 g L−1, and a photosynthetic efficiency equal to the control were obtained. The cyanobacterium was then grown on a larger scale (10 L) to evaluate the characteristics of the produced PHB in relation to the main composition of the biomass (the content of proteins, polysaccharides, and lipids): after an incubation period of 7 days, a content of 6% of lipids (52% of which as unsaturated fatty acids with 18 carbon atoms), 12% of polysaccharides, 28% of proteins, and 46% of PHB was reached. The extracted PHB had a molecular weight of 3 MDa and a PDI of 1.7. These promising results demonstrated that cf. Anabaena sp. can be included among the Cyanobacteria species able to produce polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) either in photoautotrophic or mixotrophic conditions, especially when it is grown under phosphorus-free conditions

The potential of water reuse for agricultural irrigation in the EU: A Hydro-Economic Analysis

Policy context Water reuse has been identified by the European Commission as a relevant solution to be further promoted in the EU to address water scarcity. This opportunity was highlighted again in the context of the EU action plan for a Circular Economy (COM(2015) 614 final). In, particular the Commission committed to table a legislative proposal setting minimum quality requirements for water reuse. This initiative has been included in the Commission Work Programme 2017. In order to support the decisions to be taken on the matter, the costs and benefits of water reuse need to be clearly identified and quantified to the best possible extent. Key conclusions/Main findings In this study we estimate the distribution of costs of reclaiming and transporting treated wastewater for reuse in agricultural irrigation across Europe. We consider treatment costs as well as the costs associated to the water transport infrastructure and to energy for pumping. The study highlights a high variability of costs depending on the relative position of irrigated agricultural land with respect to the wastewater treatment plants. Treatment costs alone may be minor, about 8 €cents/m3, compared to the other costs, with typical total costs exceeding 50 €cents/m3. However, when treatment requirements become more stringent, treatment costs may surge up to about 0.3 €/m3, causing total costs to shift consistently. The energy requirements for pumping of reclaimed water from wastewater treatment plants to agricultural land follow a distribution with a median of about 0.5 kWh/m3 and an interquartile range of another 0.5 kWh/m3, which seems slightly higher than reported in representative cases of irrigation with conventional water sources. The total volumes of water that can be in principle reused for irrigation are significant, and may contribute to the reduction of water stress by 10% or more in regions where irrigation is an important component of demand. Water reuse may also contribute, in a less apparent and more uncertain way, to nutrient pollution mitigation. While the treatment and energy costs are mostly compatible with the market value of the crops produced thanks to irrigation, the total costs may exceed the capacity of farmers to pay. This indicates that (1) reuse is most suitable where irrigation infrastructure already exists and the necessary additional investments are minor, and (2) the cost of water reuse should be considered in a broader context. This context should be extended to include, on the one side, the whole value chain supplied by agriculture and, on the other side, the process of river basin management where reuse may represent a measure with important co-benefits. Related and future JRC work This work is part of the broader “Water-Energy-Food-Ecosystems Nexus” project of the JRC. Water reuse is regarded as a relevant water resource management option, and this report provides the basis for an assessment of strategic priorities for water reuse in Europe.JRC.D.2-Water and Marine Resource

Enigmatic Ladies of the Rings: How Cohesin Dysfunction Affects Myeloid Neoplasms Insurgence

The genes of the cohesin complex exert different functions, ranging from the adhesion of sister chromatids during the cell cycle, DNA repair, gene expression and chromatin architecture remodeling. In recent years, the improvement of DNA sequencing technologies allows the identification of cohesin mutations in different tumors such as acute myeloid leukemia (AML), acute megakaryoblastic leukemia (AMKL), and myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). However, the role of cohesin dysfunction in cancer insurgence remains elusive. In this regard, cells harboring cohesin mutations do not show any increase in aneuploidy that might explain their oncogenic activity, nor cohesin mutations are sufficient to induce myeloid neoplasms as they have to co-occur with other causative mutations such as NPM1, FLT3-ITD, and DNMT3A. Several works, also using animal models for cohesin haploinsufficiency, correlate cohesin activity with dysregulated expression of genes involved in myeloid development and differentiation. These evidences support the involvement of cohesin mutations in myeloid neoplasms

Assessment of the effectiveness of reported Water Framework Directive Programmes of Measures - Part II – development of a system of Europe-wide Pressure Indicators

The EC DG JRC is using in-house models and other information to build indicators of pressures on water bodies, in the context of the 2nd river basin management plan (RBMP) implementation assessment (Water Framework Directive (WFD) 60/2000/EC, art. 18) and review of the WFD (art. 19). These indicators are meant to provide a picture of major water pressures at the European scale. The main reason to develop a set of independent pressure indicators is the need to evaluate and monitor the effectiveness of the EU water policies at broad. If the indicators are realistic, the models used for their computation can be used also as tools to simulate scenarios with changing pressures, as a result of policies or other drivers (such as climate changes, implementation of measures or EU sectorial policies). The EC DG ENV is steering the development of an integrated hydro-economic modelling platform in support to the evaluation of policies, with the broadest possible involvement of the EU Member States, and collaborates with DG JRC by leading a large study on the economics of water in Europe also in order to supplement JRC’s biophysical models and indicators with additional economic evidence about the costs and benefits of reducing pressures and improving the conditions of freshwater and marine ecosystems. Another question is whether the pressures are evaluated consistently throughout the European Union. The JRC indicators could be used to benchmark pressure and status reported by the Member States at a different scale. In fact, if JRC indicators are sufficiently reliable, it is expected that overall trends will be consistent with the pressures reported by the Member States. At the same time, JRC indicators do not take into account local conditions in specific water bodies, and should not be compared to reported pressures and status at water body level. The aim of benchmarking is to understand the reasons for assessment discrepancies, primarily for verification purposes. In particular, discrepancies should not be considered per se as evidence of non-compliance in the implementation of the WFD by Member States. particularly, if a given river basin is flagged by Member State reports to suffer from a given pressure, but this is not found in the JRC pressure indicators, the knowledge available at the Commission is likely inadequate for that river basin. The benchmarking process with reported pressures/status in itself could prompt the Commission to seek an explanation for the discrepancies, and eventually to update the indicators, with the overall goal of a coherent and shared vision of pressures at the European and river basin district scales. DG ENV encourages Member States to provide feedback to DG JRC on the indicators and the underpinning models, so that the European scale picture of water pressures they provide can be improved to a sufficient level of realism and representativeness, and can be consequently used as a basis for European water policy evaluation and development. As a first opportunity for this process, the JRC organised a workshop in Ispra on 11-12 May 2016 with the aim to collect feedback from experts on the proposed methodologies and indicators. The JRC pressure indicators are updated over time, as new knowledge is available at the European level. Therefore the benchmarking of local and European assessments is supposed to be a continuous process. The reviews by experts in the Member States should not add to the administrative burden related to the WFD, but should be conducted with the modalities of scientific peer reviews. It will be necessary to pay significant attention to the way the results are communicated, so to clarify the content of the indicators and avert risks of misinterpretation. The review of the indicators will serve also this purpose. This document summarizes the JRC indicators, the state of play with their update and further development, and the outcomes of the workshop held in Ispra on May 11-12, 2016.JRC.D.2-Water and Marine Resource

Chemical and biological indicators of water quality in three agricultural watersheds of the Po valley, Italy

open9noAgriculture has both direct and indirect effects on quality of surface water and is one of the key activities causing water quality degradation. Its environmental impact can be evaluated by the determination of indicators of the quality of water bodies that collect drainage and runoff waters from agricultural watersheds. For this research, the water quality draining from three watersheds, totally or partially cultivated, all within the Po river valley (Italy), was determined, using chemical indicators (N-NO3 and N-NH4 concentration, N balance), trophic status (chlorophyll-a concentration) and benthic population indexes. Together, they should provide an overview of the water status, which is supposed to be strictly related to the land use and the management. Results show that the chemical parameters are well related to land use and farming management: intensive agricultural activity leads to high N-NO3 concentration in water and N surplus and vice versa. The chlorophyll-a concentration follows the same trend, being linked to nitrogen loads and land use. Not always there is accordance between chemical and biological indicators: no direct correspondence is evident between the N-NO3 concentration in waters and benthic community. Its presence and abundance seems to be mostly correlated with the geomorphology, hydrology, riparian strips, etc. of the habitat than to the land use. Only the integration of chemical and biological parameters allows a correct understanding of the state of health of water body and benthic communities.openPIERI L.; VENTURA F.; VENTURA M.; TAGLIAVINI M.; PONTI M.; PISTOCCHI R.; ALBERTAZZI S.; VIGNUDELLI M.; ROSSI PISA P.PIERI L.; VENTURA F.; VENTURA M.; TAGLIAVINI M.; PONTI M.; PISTOCCHI R.; ALBERTAZZI S.; VIGNUDELLI M.; ROSSI PISA P

Ovatoxin-a and Palytoxin Accumulation in Seafood in Relation to Ostreopsis cf. ovata Blooms on the French Mediterranean Coast

Dinoflagellates of the genus Ostreopsis are known to cause (often fatal) food poisoning in tropical coastal areas following the accumulation of palytoxin (PLTX) and/or its analogues (PLTX group) in crabs, sea urchins or fish. Ostreopsis spp. occurrence is presently increasing in the northern to north western Mediterranean Sea (Italy, Spain, Greece and France), probably in response to climate change. In France, Ostreopsis. cf. ovata has been associated with toxic events during summer 2006, at Morgiret, off the coast of Marseille, and a specific monitoring has been designed and implemented since 2007. Results from 2008 and 2009 showed that there is a real danger of human poisoning, as these demonstrated bioaccumulation of the PLTX group (PLTX and ovatoxin-a) in both filter-feeding bivalve molluscs (mussels) and herbivorous echinoderms (sea urchins). The total content accumulated in urchins reached 450 µg PLTX eq/kg total flesh (summer 2008). In mussels, the maximum was 230 µg eq PLTX/kg (summer 2009) compared with a maximum of 360 µg found in sea urchins during the same period at the same site. This publication brings together scientific knowledge obtained about the summer development of Ostreopsis spp. in France during 2007, 2008 and 2009