Monitoring programme design

To illustrate some of the elements that form part of the monitoring programme design, two case studies follow. One is from the United Kingdom and the other is from Austria. Each describes how parts of the guidance are being applied within the Member State. 

International Atomic Energy Agency, Objectives and Design of Environmental Monitoring Programmes for Radioactive Contamination , Safety series No. 41, 1975. 

Table 2.5. Flow diagram for designing an environmental monitoring programme for local, regional or global application...

The implementation of the European Union s Water Framework Directive will require all Member States to design water monitoring programmes for the measurement of a range of ecological, hydromorphological, physico-chemical and chemical water quality elements (European Commission, 2000). This has increased the amount of monitoring... 

Ellis, J.C. (1989) Handbook on the Design and Interpretation of Monitoring Programmes, Publication NS 29. Water Research Centre, Medmenham, UK. 

Environmental monitoring programmes are usually designed to answer the following questions ... 

The soundness of policy decisions is therefore directly related to the reliability of the environmental monitoring programmes. In turn, the design and development of monitoring programmes is directly linked to the availability of recommendations in... 

The documentation of progressive reduction in concentrations of priority substances and other pollutants, and the principle of no deterioration, are key elements of the WFD and require appropriate trend monitoring. Member states should consider this when designing their monitoring programmes. Data obtained in surveillance and operational monitoring may be used for this purpose. 

Numeric models are unportant tools for the planning and designing of monitoring programmes. They can help to understand the spatial and temporal variations in pollutant concentrations. For instance, measurements in sediments and biota combined with models can be used to estimate dissolved water concentrations. Thus, appropriately validated and tested models can provide additional evidence that EQS will not be violated in a specific water body. 

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