This is an article collection published in Environmental Sciences Europe.
Insufficient water quality, due to the contamination with complex mixtures of environmental pollutants posing toxic risks to ecosystems and human health, is one of the major challenges on the way to achieve the goals of the European Water Framework Directive and of other major policy goals in Europe such as achieving a non-toxic environment.
After five years of collaborative research in the EU project “SOLUTIONS for present and future emerging pollutants in land and water resources management (Grant agreement no. 603437)” this collection of policy briefs compiles major findings and recommendations by this large scale research project for policy makers and other stakeholders from regulation, monitoring and management of water pollution but is also designed to inspire solutions-oriented science. The collected articles suggest applicable approaches to monitor, model, assess and abate risks by complex mixtures of environmental contaminants in European water resources and support these suggestions with recent scientific findings from SOLUTIONS and beyond. Requirements for a more coherent water and chemical regulation are identified and recommendations for a future European research agenda are given.
The collection of policy briefs as a whole aims to summarize the output of extensive research in the project published in more than 200 original scientific articles and make it useful for decision making and water quality protection. All submissions were invited and underwent rigorous peer review. Accepted articles were published in Environmental Sciences Europe in this collection.
