Ecosystems Signals

Introduction

The EEA zero pollution monitoring assessment is mainly based on formal, official EU-wide data sets and indicators. To broaden the assessment, other sources of information are also examined. These sources include findings from research, country-level information and other information that may help highlight pollution issues that are insufficiently addressed by legislative or other monitoring. This section of the zero pollution monitoring assessment presents a series of short case studies that highlight some of these additional sources of information. We refer to these as ‘Signals’.

The Signals below align with the subsections of the ‘Zero pollution and ecosystems’ section of the assessment and deal with freshwater, marine, air and soil pollution. There are also some Signals which do not fit into these specific categories and they are presented as ‘biodiversity signals’.

Finally, a brief summary (Figure 1) is also presented of some of the key knowledge gaps in relation to zero pollution and ecosystems.

Navigate here on the 5 signals categories:

Freshwater

1. Emerging substances
2. Microplastics

Marine

1. Marine litter watch
2. Underwater noise pollution

Air

1. The significance of airborne nitrogen deposition to the Baltic Sea
2. Wheat production losses due to ground-level ozone pollution in Europe

Soil

1. Pesticides in soils

Biodiversity

1. Light pollution — a neglected environmental threat to biodiversity?
2. Understanding pesticide impacts on pollinators

Figure 1. Knowledge gaps — zero pollution and ecosystems