7.3 Environmental surveillance for other purposes

Much can be learned about environmental surveillance from other disciplines, such as monitoring of chemical and pharmaceutical environmental pollution. For some of these product groups a much longer history of environmental surveillance activities exists and the output of these studies has resulted in regulations, for example the Water Framework Directive [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] in Europe (European Commission, n.d.). Surveillance activities are often undertaken by environmental laboratories that are well acquainted with chemical analysis and sometimes also have tasks in drinking water/surface water quality control through measuring indicators for faecal pollution.

These regulations compel member countries to carry out surveillance of surface water to assure water quality and human and ecological health. A list of priority substances is drafted that must be monitored.