Water use and Trends in Emissions to Water, priority hazardous substances and monitoring challenges for the petrochemical and oil industry

Water use and Trends in Emissions to Water from the EU Refining Sector - Mike Spence

Europe's environment is probably better today than at any time since 1900, thanks to the enhanced environmental control measures taken by industry, both voluntarily and in response to the legislation developed in the EU. This is substantiated by the European Environment Agency in their 2015 report on the state of the European Environment, which states that, 'Looking back on the last 40 years, implementation of environment and climate policies has delivered substantial benefits for the functioning of Europe's ecosystems and for the health and living standards of its citizens. In many parts of Europe, the local environment is arguably in as good a state today as it has been since the start of industrialisation'. 

Priority substances (and priority hazardous substances) sector contributions: a case study - Ms Katy Baker

The Water Framework Directive (WFD, 2000/60/EC) requires integrated management of groundwater and surface water at a European level. Each member country of the European Union (EU) has been required to produce a river basin management plan (RBMP) for each river basin area within the country, which outlines the current status of waters, objectives for the improvement of water quality, and a timetable for action, with an update cycle of every six years. The first cycle will end in 2015 when, following further planning and consultation, the current reports will be updated.

Water policy creates monitoring challenges - Mr Steven Van de Broeck

Several legislative developments (EQS directive, surface water watch list, ...) have introduced the past years additional requirements for authorities with regard to the monitoring of all kind of chemicas and pharmaceutical substances in the environment. This poses very specific challenges e.g. with regard to the robustness of analytical methods or even requires the development of new monitoring methodologies.