VIDEO
Flying and the environment – The EU leads the way
Contextual framework – the EEA in context
Mandates and approach
Foundation
The determination of the extent of the EEA mandate, and the resources to be applied in carrying it out was a key issue for the EU. In particular, the EU recognized that providing strong panoply of environmental protection legislation was inadequate without extensive study of the condition of Europe’s environment.
In considering the proposed mandate of the EEA, it was also recognized that data on the domestic implementation of these environmental provisions was equally crucial. However, the effort to introduce a system for monitoring the extent and adequacy of domestic legal implementation was successfully opposed by Member States. This task was ultimately adopted by the Implementation and Enforcement of Environmental Law Network (IMPEL) supported by the Environment Directorate-General of the European Commission.
Because scrutiny of domestic legal implementation was resisted and because policy formulation is the responsibility of the Environment Directorate-General, the remit of the EEA, accordingly, became the collection and analysis of environmental information to be used as a cornerstone for the development of future environmental policy. To effect this mandate, the EEA organized itself into three main activity areas: networking; national monitoring and reporting; and acting as a reference centre.
Networking
For the EEA individually to collect environmental data throughout the pan-European region would require a phenomenal level of human and fiscal resources. It would also entail a substantial amount of unnecessary duplication of work already undertaken by a variety of national and local governmental departments and agencies and work done by private interest groups and nongovernmental organizations. Consequently, it is more efficient for the EEA to utilize and support existing data collection schemes and to act as a central processor and distributor of information.
To achieve this, the EEA established the Environment Information and Observation Network (EIONET) of which the EEA is itself the central hub. EIONET is the primary mechanism by which the EEA achieves its goal of assessing the condition of Europe’s environment to enable the EU and Member States to develop appropriate and effective policies and legislation. To operate such a vast network requires efficient use of modern telecommunications and information technology. In addition to its environmental specialty, the EEA has considerable expertise in these fields, having developed one of the original ground-breaking EXTRANET systems under the Interchange of Data between Administrations programme of the Enterprise Directorate-General.
Feeding into the EEA as the core of EIONET are over 600 environmental bodies, agencies and research centers. The most significant information sources in the network can be viewed in three main classes: the European Topic Centers (and PHARE Topic Links); National Focal Points; and National Reference Centres.
The European Topic Centers (ETCs) play a fundamental role for the EEA by co-coordinating research activities in designated focus areas. This work is undertaken in the PHARE countries for and in conjunction with the ETCs by Phare Topic Links. The ETCs operate as an outsourcing of elements of the EEA’s study programme under contract. The contemporary work and development of the ETCs is treated further below.
All of the EEA members have a National Focal Point (NFP). This is a division of a governmental department or agency, which organizes the monitoring and reporting within that country for its own purposes and for the benefit of the EEA. The NFP has responsibility for collecting and submitting the data sought by the EEA as part of the annual and multi-annual work programmes in respect of that country. The NFP will also make submissions to EEA publications, including the European State of the Environment Report, EEA Technical Reports, and EEA proposal documents. The NFPs contribute to the information infrastructure of the EEA by their participation in the Information Technology and Telematics Advisory Group (ITTAG). This group is made up of experts nominated by the NFPs to work with the EEA in co-coordinating the technical issues of reporting and disseminating the collected data. Each NFP is assisted by the work of National Reference Centers (NRCs).
These are public or private bodies with a specific expertise in areas chosen for indicator monitoring. A large portion of the NFP monitoring workload is subcontracted to the NRC, though remaining directed by the NFP under the overarching framework of the EEA and EIONET. The NRCs also contribute to the specialist work of a particular ETC to which it has a thematic affinity. The information collected by the ETCs, NFPs, and NRCs in conjunction with other smaller participants provides the EEA, through the EIONET programme, with an extensive database of environmental indication and record. This information is made available to special interest groups, and to the public at large, through numerous EEA printed and online publications.
This allows private interest groups, researchers, students and academics to be equipped with accurate, detailed and current environmental assessments, which, when viewed over time, chart the progression or regression of environmental affairs, without the need for costly and intensive research. Given the modern emergence of environmental litigation, this ease of access to information may be of immense assistance to parties and lawyers in environmental court actions.
Monitoring and reporting
As mentioned above, the essence of the EEA’s activity is the collection and assimilation of data submitted by national reporting agencies into a harmonized and accessible format. Over 400 recent national reports (since 1997), pertaining to over 50 countries, are available to the public through the State of the Environment Reports Information System (SERIS). SERIS is a database containing the national environmental reports and other key documents produced by the NFPs and other organizations that contribute to the EEA European State of the Environment Report. The SERIS database is based on the Internet.
The NFP for Ireland is the Environmental Protection Agency. It contributes to the work of the EEA by preparing a report on the condition of Ireland’s environment at least once every five years in tandem with the publication of the European State of the Environment Report. The EPA undertakes comprehensive studies of environmental indicators in Ireland’s inland and coastal waterways and assesses the national air quality. The waterway reporting involves ongoing inspection of the physic-chemical water condition and biological traits of rivers and lakes and assessment of levels and changes of overall water volume and toxicity. Coastal waterway monitoring gauges the quality of bathing water for coastal swimming, and the monitoring of estuary waterways to assess compliance as regards the EU Urban Waste Water treatment Directive. An air quality report is produced annually. This report records pollution in the air, noting, in particular, smoke, sulphur dioxide, lead, nitrous oxides, and carbon monoxide levels, while also studying greenhouse gas emissions.
The EPA is assisted in its contributions to EIONET and the EEA by a number of NRCs which study and monitor environmental issues within their own specialist purview. At present there are five NRCs in Ireland. The Marine Institute, the national agency for the promotion of marine research and development, acts as the NRC for marine and coastal monitoring. Teagasc, the Irish Agriculture and Food Development Authority, monitors and reports on soil quality as an NRC. Dúchas, the agency of the Department of Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands tasked with conserving Ireland’s natural and built heritage, is the NRC for nature conservation. The NRC for forests is the Forest Service of the Department of Agriculture. The final NRC is Ordnance Survey Ireland, which has responsibility for land cover.
Reference centre
Following the successful establishment of a network of effective environmental monitoring and reporting and the development of EIONET, the Commission, in its first review of the EEA in 1997, assigned to it the task of becoming the seminal electronic reference centre for environmental information. Furthermore, the founding regulation requires that the EEA ensure that the populace of the EU is educated and aware of the state of the environment.
These compatible aims caused the EEA to utilize the convenience of modern information technology to develop a colossal compilation of environmental research materials on the internet and to compile the SERIS database mentioned above. Between 1995 and 2002 the EEA published over three hundred documents reporting environmental conditions. The most significant of these are the Dobris Assessment (1995), the first all-encompassing report on the condition of Europe’s environment, and its successor reports Europe’s Environment: The Second Assessment (1998); and Europe’s Environment: The Third Assessment (2003). Thus the EEA has developed a reference centre unsurpassed in the provision of environmental information services.
