Countries bordering the south and east of the Mediterranean need to continually improve many aspects of environmental management to reduce pollution in the sea, according to a new assessment.
The "Horizon 2020 Mediterranean report - Toward shared environmental information systems" focuses on three main environmental topics: waste water and sanitation, solid municipal waste and industrial emissions.
The report covers Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine and Tunisia, which work with the European Union within the European Neighbourhood Policy.
The report says that sanitation has improved steadily in the region over the last decade. Between 2003 and 2011 the proportion of the population with access to sanitation increased from 87.5 to 92 %. However, there are still 17.6 million people in the region without sanitation, a third of them living in urban areas.
According to the report, industrial emissions have a heavy impact on the Mediterranean. While pollution from heavy metals in seawater has decreased in recent years, local marine pollution from cities, industry and tourist resorts is still leading to widespread pollution of seas and beaches.
It also concludes that there is great potential to reuse wastewater in the region. Currently only around 1 % of wastewater is reused – the report says it is possible to make better use of this instead of discharging it into the sea.
However, progress in urban wastewater management remains difficult to assess as the data currently available do not provide sound evidence on trends at the regional level.
There are still many data gaps for the topics covered by the report, in particular for wastewater management. Countries should also invest in creating an emissions inventory to show annual emissions of pollutants from different industrial facilities, the report says. Despite the multiplicity of activities already being carried out by civil society and governments in the region to tackle the pollution problem, there is still scope for intensifying cooperation and information sharing.
Hans Bruyninckx, EEA Executive Director, said:
"Countries have put tremendous efforts into submitting data and seeking a better understanding of the pressures on the Mediterranean, an important step in cutting the pollution of the sea. However, the region needs to work even harder together if it is to meet its target to depollute the sea by 2020."
The Horizon 2020 Mediterranean report has been coordinated by the European Environment Agency (EEA) and the United Nations Environment Programme/Mediterranean Action Plan with financial support from the European Commission under the ENPI-SEIS project. The report forms part of the mid-term review of the Horizon 2020 Initiative, which aims to reduce pollution in the Mediterranean between 2006 and 2020.
Click here to download the report in full.