The Water Framework Directive advocates for the protection and improvement of water quality to achieve good ecological status. The UKTAG Water Framework Directive on Groundwater Hazardous Substances aims to provide guidelines and directions regarding the methods and procedures applied in the assessment, monitoring and control of risks associated with groundwater. It helps improve water quality and prevent deterioration of water environments through proper and effective management.
The framework outlines the limits for various hazardous substances found in groundwater and the concentrations for groundwater for which risks are avoided. The limits are provided for a list of groundwater pollutants identified by UKTAG. They include arsenic, benzene, lead, mercury compounds, DDT, toluene, and chloroform. The formulation of limit values considers factors such as precision, bias and measurement uncertainty as they are derived through laboratory analysis. The framework can identify instances where the desired limits for pollutants have been exceeded, hence calling for necessary actions to be initiated.
UKTAG is focused on assisting the member agencies with managing risks in groundwater. These agencies include the Environment Agency, Republic of Ireland Environmental Protection Agency, Scottish Environment Protection Agency, Natural Resources Wales, and the Northern Ireland Environment Agency. The application of the guidelines provided in the framework is dependent on the situation and specific needs of each agency. It requires that each administration be responsible for establishing its regulatory position with the help of the technical report on groundwater hazardous substances. It advises the integration of public consultation where it is appropriate to gather the input from different experts and stakeholders.
UK Technical Advisory Group: Groundwater Hazardous Substances can be found on the ESdat website. All compiled environmental guidelines and standards are shown. These are pre-loaded into ESdat Online.
ESdat is a single repository for storing, analyzing and reporting your environmental investigation and monitoring data. ESdat validates and imports data from laboratories, data loggers, field apps and spreadsheets. Users can filter and view data using the built-in graphing, mapping, tabulation, statistical and report generation tools. Increasing efficiency and confidence in the data are cited as key benefits by organizations using ESdat.
ESdat Online delivers a highly cost-effective and efficient approach to store your ongoing monitoring environmental data, optionally with a historical data upload provided as a getting started service. ESdat Online is perfect if you want a cloud-based system that collates and reports your ongoing laboratory and field results.
ESdat Server provides the advantages of ESdat Online with the option of adding ESdat Desktop for data experts to upload their historical data, effectively interrogate the raw data being used within the database, and automatically launch and send data to other Desktop Applications such as Surfer, ArcGIS and Excel.
A variety of complementary products are also available to help with related work, such as sample planning and electronic Chain of Custody (LSPECS), offline field data collection or bore logging (pLog), and production of bore logs (ESlog), public portals and customized reporting.
References
WFD (2022). Groundwater hazardous substances standards. Retrieved from http://www.wfduk.org/resources/groundwater-hazardous-substances-standards
WFD (2022). UK Technical Advisory Group on the Water Framework Directive: Technical report on Groundwater Hazardous Substances. Retrieved from http://www.wfduk.org/sites/default/files/Media/UKTAG_Technical%20report_GW_Haz-Subs_ForWebfinal.pdf
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