Monitoring contaminants in Mediterranean Sea

CIESM Mediterranean Mussel Watch Program: large-scale survey of radioactive and emerging contaminants in the Mediterranean and Black Seas. Primary concern: public health.

Coordinator: Hervé Thébault
IPSN, La Seyne/mer, France - Fax: +33 (0)4 94 87 83 07

General information

The Mediterranean Mussel Watch program was originally conceived by CIESM in 2002 (see CIESM Workshop Monograph n°15) with the main objective to document reliable baseline levels of radionuclides in the Mediterranean and Black Seas coastal waters, using the mussel, Mytilus galloprovincialis as a unique bioindicator. Some 20 marine environmental laboratories are now involved in this network, the first in the region specifically designed to monitor radionuclides before its extension next to other trace-contaminants. A dedicated round-table session was held during the 37th CIESM Congress (June 2004, Barcelona). Attended by some 50 scientists and coastal managers, it highlighted the preliminary outputs of the program. A major step was achieved by the end of 2004, with the production and utilization by the network of a specific reference material (AIEA-437) with financial support of IRSN, France, and technical coordination of AIEA-MEL, Monaco, allowing a large intercomparison exercise. At the moment of this writing (end 2007), over 50 sites have been monitored; on the basis of these results, the program coordinator was able to produce this first, yet partial, distribution map of Cesium-137 at the regional level:

Map updated on 28 November 2007 - Cesium-137 distribution in mussels in 2004-2006. Concentrations show one order of magnitude difference between sites in the Black Sea and north Aegean Sea and sites in the Western Basin.

Since 2005, the full operational phase of the program did unfold with the financial support of CIESM, including sampling campaigns in most coastal waters and transplantation of mussels where natural populations are now scarce or absent.

Recent papers stemming from the CIESM Mediterranean Mussel Watch Program

NEW		Thébault H., A.M. Rodriguez y Baena, B. Andral, D. Barisic, J. Benedicto Albaladejo, A.S. Bologa, R. Boudjenoun, R. Delfanti, V. Egorov, T. El Khoukhi, H. Florou, G. Kniewald, A. Noureddine, V. Patrascu, M.K. Pham, A. Scarpato, N.A. Stokozov, S. Topcuoglu, and M. Warnau. 2008. ¹³⁷Cs baseline levels in the Mediterranean and Black Sea: a cross-basin survey of the CIESM Mediterranean Mussel Watch program. Mar. Pol. Bull. (doi:10.1016/j.marpolbul.2007.11.010). Download the file in pdf format - 628 Ko.
		Thébault H. and A.M. Rodriguez y Baena. 2007. Mediterranean Mussel Watch: a regional program for detecting radionuclides, trace- and emerging-contaminants. Rapp. Comm. Int. Mer. Médit. 38 (41). Download the file in pdf format - 62 Ko.
		Rodriguez y Baena A.M. and Thébault H. 2007. CIESM Mediterranean Mussel Watch Program Phase II: towards an increased awareness of marine environment and seafood quality. In: “Marine Sciences and Public Health – Some Major Issues”, F. Briand (Ed.), CIESM Workshop Monograph No. 31(87-90). Download the file in pdf format - 208Ko.

More detailed info

All data produced on a common basis by the participants of the MMW program will feed a database currently under construction. Once validated, contaminants levels and related information will be fully available on-line.