Preventive and remediation strategies for continuous elimination of polychlorinated phenols from forest soils and ground waters (ESP.MD.SFP 981674)0073

"The aim of the Security through Science Programme is to contribute to security, stability and solidarity among nations, by applying science to problem solving. Civil science has proved to be a highly effective vehicle for international dialogue, due to its universality”.

The most pressing environmental problems throughout the MED-European region, affecting human health and biodiversity integrity, are directly related to water and environmental degradation. The trans-boundary nature of much pollution increases the risk of long term exposure to pollutants at all levels of the ecosystem. These constitute priority environmental challenges and scientific studies are key, developing environmental assessment methodologies and producing reliable data on pollution sources, pathways and impacts.

In early 2007, a research programme commenced undertaken by an interdisciplinary consortium comprising research teams form three NATO countries (Portugal, UK and Italy) and two Mediterranean Dialogue countries (Tunisia and Morocco). The consortium has identified a common environmental threat that is transboundary in nature and has important implications for land management and policy.

The research plan addresses the assessment of pentachlorophenol (PCP), a widely used herbicide, pesticide and wood preservative, which whilst banned in many countries but still has some restricted application. The programme focuses on the probable presence of pentachlorophenol (PCP) in Cork Oak (Quercus suber) forest. The intrinsic health and environmental hazards of PCP justify the recommendation to develop research aimed at understanding the facts behind oak forest contamination with PCP. Legal restrictions on PCP use have not lead to the removal of PCP from the environment, and it is widely recognised as a persistent organic pollutant (POP) of increasing concern. Therefore it is important to consider alternative routes for PCP formation and contamination (e.g. transboundary contamination from remote sources where PCP use is still authorised). PCP is environmentally persistent (photo stable) and its water solubility together with its moderate mobility makes soil/water interaction acute, therefore it is a suitable model molecule for assessing POPs environmental decay. Quercus suber forest is an important ecosystem, with internationally significant biodiversity and has been identified as a unique scenario to investigate the dynamics of PCP environmental decay, which will have additional impacts for the assessment of other important POPs. This study will report PCP forest pollution status and risks (defining the concentrations/doses to which humans or environmental spheres are, or may be, exposed), synergistically evolving through the two distinct approaches of monitoring and simulation, in selected open agro-forestry areas and in confined experimental soil-microcosms. Pollutant fate mechanisms (diffusion, absorption and transformation) will be interpreted.