Development and evaluation of a model-based strategy to identify POP-like chemicals with a potential to accumulate on Svalbard (DEMO)

In 2001, a global agreement, the Stockholm Convention, was signed to protect humans and the environment from known persistent organic pollutants (POPs).

POPs in food, humans and the environment have largely been discovered using advanced chemical analysis methods. A limitation of this method is that the new pollutants we find tend to be similar to the pollutants we already know about.

In the DEMO project, we take as our starting point the thousands of chemical substances that we already know are produced in significant quantities.

Based on this knowledge, we will develop and apply mathematical models to understand and predict whether these substances have properties that indicate that they can be transported via air and sea on a global scale and accumulate in the Arctic.

Based on an initial ranking, we will then repeat the analysis, but then also take into account how likely it is that we will find these prioritized substances in Svalbard, at what levels and where. We will use the revised list of relevant substances to plan and conduct fieldwork in Svalbard.

Finally, we will develop and apply new chemical analysis methods to see if any of the relevant substances are present in the environmental samples.

Through these research activities, we hope to gain better insight into whether there are chemical substances that may have gone under the radar, primarily with regard to their possible occurrence in the Arctic, but possibly also in a regulatory context.

Preliminary results from the project have been presented at scientific conferences, as well as communicated to relevant decision-makers involved in chemical strategies for substances that can accumulate in the Arctic (the Norwegian Environment Agency, OECD and the Stockholm Convention (POPRC)).

The project is also contributing to the upgrade of the existing modelling tool developed by the OECD to calculate long-range environmental transport and the overall lifetime of chemical substances in the environment.