RECENT DATA FROM POLLUTION MONITORING AND ASSESSMENT OF THE ROMANIAN BLACK SEA ECOSYSTEM, WITHIN IMPLEMENTATION OF THE EUROPEAN MARINE STRATEGY FRAMEWORK DIRECTIVE

The Black Sea is affected by important natural and anthropogenic pressures, resulted from the growth of coastal populations, the exploitation of marine resources, the development of shipping, off-shore activities, tourism and industrialization. Establishing a relationship between pressures and environmental status is necessary in order to identify the main causes of any change. The knowledge of these relationships is essential for pertinent and efficient measures so as to achieve and maintain Good Environmental Status (GES) in marine ecosystems. The main objective is to investigate these relationships and link the pressures with the impacts in the marine environment, focusing on characteristics and peculiarities of the coastal Black Sea ecosystem. In the framework of the FP7 PERSEUS Project (Policy-oriented Marine Environmental Research for the Southern European Seas), new data (2012-2014) on a wide range of contaminants: heavy metals (HM), total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPHs), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), organochlorine pesticides (OCPs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in seawater, sediments and biota from the Romanian Black Sea were obtained. Gradient of pollution was assessed along relevant monitoring transects, covering two Perseus study areas (Danube mouths, and Constanta area). Survey network was designed in a way to improve knowledge on the various influences upon the quality of the Romanian Black Sea waters, either Danube in the northern area, or various land-based sources in the southern one. The assessment of organic pollutants and metals in study areas close to river mouths and coastal cities allowed the evaluation of their occurrence in ecosystem components, providing thus evidence of their impact under different natural and anthropogenic sources. Progresses in implementation of Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MFSD), namely Descriptors 8 and 9, in Romanian Black Sea waters and development of methodologies for assessing GES were achieved.