Pan-European team of scientists has flagged up a number of nasty pesticides that pose a threat to river ecosystems and which they believe should be added to the list of chemicals classified as risky in the EU Water Framework Directive. According to the researchers, their study shows the list needs to be regularly updated.

A team of researchers from Belgium, Germany, Spain, France and Slovakia presented their findings based on an analysis of 500 organic substances in the basins of four major European rivers. They discovered that 38% of these chemicals are present in concentrations that could prove to be devastating for the organisms that call the river basins home, therefore, contamination by organic chemicals is a problem throughout Europe. In conclusion, according to the scientists, a number of nasty pesticides that pose a threat to river ecosystems and which they believe should be added to the list of chemicals classified as risky in the EU Water Framework Directive. This study also financed with EU funds as it was the recent published study in which it was discovered viruses in almost 40% of more than 1,400 bathing water samples collected in nine European countries.

Two projects funded with EU support, the MODELKEY ('Models for Assessing and Forecasting the Impact of Environmental Key Pollutants on Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems and Biodiversity') project and the OSIRIS ('Optimized strategies for Risk assessment of chemicals based on Intelligent testing') project, were the basis of the researchers work. The study focused on organic pollutants recorded in over 750,000 entries of water analyses in the basins of the Elbe (Czech Republic/Germany), the Danube (which runs through 10 neighbouring European countries), the Schelde (Belgium) and the Llobregat (Spain) rivers. This is the first study to have developed such a system that classifies organic pollutants on the basis of assessment criteria and the need for action.

The team of researchers underlined that despite these shortcomings their findings do in fact show how successful the EU Water Framework Directive has been, as one third of the pollutants classified as priority a few years ago by the EU now no longer present a risk to the rivers studied. So while their study shows the list needs to be regularly updated, the fact that some pesticides can now be 'struck-off' the risk list shows that Europe are moving in the right direction. This type of research is therefore vital for keeping the Directive up to date. The majority of the substances currently presenting problems are not listed, while many of the chemicals still being monitored have actually been banned for some time and are no longer used.