Spatial and temporal trends of global, regional, and local POPs distribution

The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants was adopted with the objective of protecting human health and the environment from persistent organic pollutants. The effectiveness evaluation of Convention measures needs the comparable monitoring data on the presence of the POPs including the spatial and temporal trends evaluation and their regional and global environmental transport. Air monitoring for POPs has conventionally been conducted at a very limited number of sites using "active" or high volume air samplers or broadly with application of passive air sampling. Persistent organic pollutants have been monitored using the integrated monitoring approach in all environmental matrices in the Kosetice observatory, Czech Republic since 1988. This facility serves as a Central European background monitoring station for the purpose of various national and international monitoring program and national environmental research projects. Using the integrated monitoring approach, a set of monitoring parameters and ecosystem indicators was applied to determine the state of the environment, to detect anthropogenic impacts and influences, to determine the time-related trends of POPs levels, and to predict the future changes of terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems in a long-term perspective.