The EEA briefing ‘PFAS pollution in European waters’ provides a first overview of the problem with the so-called ‘forever chemicals’ in rivers, lakes, transitional and coastal waters in Europe.PFAS pollution in watercan harm human health and the environment.
PFOSis one of the approximate 10,000 compounds in the large group of PFAS, also known as ‘forever chemicals’ due to their extreme persistence in the environment. Based on 2022 data from about 1,300 monitoring sites in Europe, 59% of sites in rivers, 35% of sites in lakes, and 73% of sites in transitional and coastal watersexceeded the environmental quality standardfor PFOS.
The EEA briefing notes that it is still hard to draw conclusions on the extent of the problem across Europe, due to uncertainties and gaps in the reported data. However, the results dohighlight a challengein delivering on the objectives of thezero pollution ambitionfor a toxic-free environment and in achieving good chemical status under the Water Framework Directive.
To better understand the extent of the PFAS pollution problem in Europe, more sensitive analytical methods and expanding the range of substances and the geographical coverage are needed, the EEA briefing states.
The new evidence presented in the EEA briefing supports the current proposal amending the Water Framework Directive to expand the list of priority substances (i.e. by including more PFAS) and the need to review the PFAS limits specified in the Drinking Water Directive. The evidence also supports theEuropean Water Resilience Strategy,which is expected as a priority initiative of the new European Commission.
The current EU policy target under the Water Framework Directive is to achieve good chemical status for Europe’s water bodies by 2027. According to the EEA’s recent ‘Europe’s state of water’ assessment, only 29% of Europe’s waters achieved good chemical status over the 2015-2021 period. The EU zero pollution vision for 2050 is for air, water and soil pollution to be reduced to levels no longer considered harmful to health and natural ecosystems.
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Source – EEA
PFAS pollution in European waters
This briefing provides a first overview of PFAS pollution in water based on monitoring data reported to EEA’s Waterbase. PFOS levels are compared with regulatory threshold values, providing an initial understanding of risks in European waters.
Key messages
Monitoring data indicate that perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) is widespread throughout European waters, often exceeding regulatory threshold levels set to avoid potential risk to human health and the environment.
From 2018 to 2022, 51-60% of rivers, 11-35% of lakes and 47-100% of transitional and coastal waters exceeded the annual average environmental quality standards (EQS) for PFOS.
Monitoring activities need to be expanded to provide more information on a greater range of PFAS across a wider geographical area; more sensitive analytical methods are also required.
The widespread presence of PFOS and potentially many other PFAS in Europe’s water is a clear challenge to the EU’s zero pollution ambition for a toxic-free environment. It also compromises the EU policy target of achieving good chemical status for Europe’s water bodies by 2027 at the latest, as laid out in EU policy.
Concern about environmental PFAS pollution is increasing
PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are a large group of chemicals consisting of approximately 10,000 different compounds. Also referred to as ‘forever chemicals’, their extreme persistence in the environment has been understood for a long time. However, other concerning properties of these compounds have become better understood over the past two decades. These properties that are displayed by certain subgroups of PFAS include:
- potential for bioaccumulation in living organisms;
- high mobility in water, soil and air;
- long-range transport potential; and
- (eco)toxicological effects that impact humans and the environment (BAuA et al., 2023).
However, there is increasing concern about the harmful effects of all the compounds in the PFAS group, including growing evidence that the less-studied compounds may have similar negative impacts (BAuA et al., 2023). In addition, some PFAS may degrade into so-called arrowhead substances; these are shorter-chain PFAS that are often more mobile and/or bioavailable and hence more problematic than the parent compound.
PFAS pollution in water can harm human health as well as the environment. The EU human biomonitoring project HBM4EU included assessment of PFAS and found that they exceeded safe guideline levels in European teenagers. While accumulation in humans, animals, sediment or soil is mainly due to long-chain PFAS, short-chain PFAS are often found in water and plants as a consequence of their persistence and high mobility (Ghisi et al., 2019; UBA, 2017). In particular, trifluoroacetic acid (TFA), a highly persistent degradation product (i.e. formed from the breakdown of other PFAS including certain pesticides), is on the rise in European groundwater, posing a threat to drinking water since TFA contamination is hard to remove.
Marine currents and sea spray are important pathways for the distribution of PFAS, contributing to their global presence. PFAS have been documented far from their potential sources and across all continents with varying levels of industrialisation. This suggests that long-range transport in the atmosphere is another significant pathway for their distribution (Kurwadkar et al., 2022). They have even accumulated in remote places such as the Arctic.
The Forever Pollution project has estimated that there are around 23,000 PFAS-contaminated sites in Europe; of these, approximately 2,300 are ‘hotspots’ with high levels of pollution that may pose a threat to human health. Another recent study points in the same direction but also acknowledges that a lot is still unknown about the true extent and potential impact of PFAS contamination in surface and groundwater (Ackerman Grunfeld et al., 2024). This issue is also underlined in a recent report by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre which identifies several gaps in our knowledge of PFAS in the aquatic environment; it points to the need for more monitoring data for an effective assessment.
Read the full text of the EEA assessment