The "Environmental Monitoring" Topical Working Group

The setting up of this Working Group, proposed during the plenary meeting of the Network held on January 24, 2003, originated from the need to follow up the implementations of the measures co-financed by the Community Structural Funds that were to address the environmental monitoring sector.

Ten years after the coming into effect of the reorganization scheme that provided for the setting up of the environmental protection agencies, only some of them are fully operational, while a few are affected by institutional, structural, organizational and operating problems.

The 2000/2006 Community Support Framework (CSF) laid emphasis on these problems: "In Southern Italy, the actual knowledge of the pressures exerted on the environment and the quality conditions of the resources is generally unsatisfactory in respect of both the quantity and quality of data. The reason resides in the want of monitoring networks, the fragmentation of information among different bodies, and the nearly total lack of regional environmental information systems".

This has caused the Network to set up the Group - which, in addition to the Ministry of Economy and Finance and the Ministry for the Environment and the Protection of the Territory, also includes such new members as APAT and ISTAT - with a view to investigating the ARPA criticalities in Southern Italy. The objectives of this Working Group are defined in its mandate:

• To contribute to the reconstruction of a cognitive picture of the environmental monitoring systems, also through an analysis of the specific responsibilities at the various institutional levels.
• To supply elements of analysis and evaluation in order to steer the implementation of the environmental monitoring actions of the ROPs, as well as to make a reconnaissance of the typologies of available information and the statistical information "quality".
• To formulate operational proposals to improve the interrelations among information systems and strengthen the cooperation and coordination effort of the APAT-ARPA-ISTAT network, following up the development policies implemented by the CSF also with a view to enhancing the definition of the environmental strategy in the forthcoming Structural Funds programming cycle.
• To follow the evolution of the implementation of the sectoral databases and the availability of sectoral indicators resulting from the actions planned in the CSF also with a view to the definition of the 2007-2013 programming.

Considering the plurality of sectors involved in environmental monitoring (air, water, soil, wastes), the activity has mostly addressed the water sector, as this is a CSF strategic priority in terms of both financing volumes devoted to it and the complexity of the Community and national regulatory framework. Further to the preparation of synthetic cards on data coming from the Monit system, the APAT and the Ministry for the Environment, as well as the direct experience of its members, a number of individual meetings have been held with the representatives of the ARPAs and the Regions in order to probe into the state of implementation of the systems for monitoring, collecting and disseminating environmental data. The outcome of the investigation is shown in the document attached.

RESULTING DOCUMENT:

• Report on the institutional, organizational and operational aspects of the environmental monitoring systems in the Objective 1 Regions - Water monitoring (December 2005) [it] (pdf, 1520 kb)
• Enclosure [it] (pdf, 1470 kb)