Ministry of Economic Affairs Baden-Württemberg |
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Prof. Dr. habil. Michael Birkle, Fraunhofer Insitute for Information and Data Processing - IITB, Karlsruhe
Reliable measuring systems are essential prerequisites for the assessment, protection and improvement of the environment. The core areas of environmental metrology are emission and immission measurements which relate to protection against air pollution, wastewater analyses, status monitoring of surface waters, and drinking water analysis as well as the metrological detection of soil and groundwater contamination. The primary goal of metrology in this context is to detect and quantify the concentration of very specific foreign substances or contaminants in the respective medium. Another important aspect is that surface waters, groundwater and soil, as well as a whole series of waste fractions, are highly active media in the evaluation of which more and more microbiological measurement variables have to be taken into account. In addition to analytical metrology, which, today, has reached a very high technical standard, microbiological measuring methods are therefore gaining in importance when it comes to environmental protection but are mostly still at the level of manual measuring methods in the laboratory.
In air or waste gas, the concentration of pollutants to be measured can alter very quickly. Measurements are therefore necessary at intervals of a minute or shorter, after which the half-hourly, hourly or daily averages are calculated. In surface waters, the speed of change is considerably lower and, as a rule, measurements every half hour or longer are sufficient. The measurement quantities in soil and groundwater change even more slowly so that measurements at intervals of one or several months are enough. For groundwater monitoring, an annual measurement suffices as a check.
As a result of these different requirements, permanently active automatic measuring instruments dominate in the area of air analysis and assessment. These pass on the measured values to a data processing unit for purposes of compression (averaging, classification etc.). The measuring systems used are directly related to industrial metrology. In the latter case, the measuring devices used sometimes perform a dual function in that their measured values ensure compliance with environment-protection stipulations as well as controlling or monitoring the actual industrial process. On the other hand, the need for the results of measurements in the area of soil protection and groundwater monitoring can be satisfied almost completely with discontinuous manual measuring devices as used in laboratory analysis. Here, development is going in the direction of discontinuous in situ measuring methods, whereby the advantage over laboratory measurement techniques is that the results are available very shortly after a sample has been taken.
Reliable measuring equipment, i.e. a measuring system that supplies comparable results with little measuring uncertainty, is a precondition for legislators to take action when limits, guidance values or thresholds have to be defined. The task of the law-makers is therefore not only to lay down limits, guidance values or thresholds but also to ensure that measuring instruments or measuring methods are specified with which adherence to the legal requirements can be monitored. In the context of protection against air pollution, this entails the announcement of measuring equipment and/or standardized measuring methods that have been tested for suitability and with which, in Germany, it is possible to make sure that results are comparable and that those concerned are always treated equally. Independent, qualified testing institutes for testing suitability and the VDI Clean Air Commission as a recognized instance are active in the standardization and drawing up of draft standards. In the area of water monitoring, wastewater analysis, groundwater monitoring and soil analysis, uniform results are aimed for or obtained with the help of standardized and/or standard-based measuring methods, whereby here, particularly in the area of soil analysis, the development of measuring techniques and standardization is being driven forward by the pioneering role that Baden-Württemberg plays in the remediation of old polluted industrial sites.
The specification and standardization of suitable measuring methods for monitoring adherence to the legal environmental-protection requirements used to be mainly a national concern but, now, this is being done more and more by committees and institutes of the EU, a trend which will continue in the future. The protection of national interests must be ensured by the provision of development results and national draft standards but especially by collaboration in the European and international standardization and standards committees. In this way, measurement technology from Baden-Württemberg is represented and integrated on an international level.
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