Project

Environmental toxins in urban animals (MILBY) is a program commissioned by the Norwegian Environment Agency. The program is led by NILU in collaboration with the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA), the Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA) and the Institute for Energy Technology (IFE). The program started in 2013 and has run over 3 five-year program periods. The last and third program period will end in 2026.

The main objective of MILBY is to assess the occurrence and accumulation potential of certain pollutants in living organisms on land in an urban ecosystem, and the possible sources of pollution from the pollutants. The program also assesses the risk resulting from the animals being exposed to a mixture of environmental toxins and to secondary poisoning. MILBY is not specifically designed as a monitoring program with the goal of producing trend studies over time.

Soil, earthworms, eggs from grey thrushes and sparrowhawks, livers from rats and red foxes have been collected and analysed throughout the period. In addition, other relevant species and plants have been collected for some years. The samples have been analysed for a large number of substances belonging to different groups of pollutants. In the current program period, this corresponds to 165 individual connections.

The surveillance is carried out in Norway's largest city, Oslo. With different places for collecting samples, the design aims to reflect the pollution that wildlife is generally exposed to in an urban region.

MILBY seeks to assess the presence and uptake of pollutants from sources in an urban environment, together with three other monitoring programs:

• "Environmental pollutants in an urban fjord", which monitors pollutants in the inner Oslofjord.
• MILFERSK, which monitors environmental toxins in Lake Mjøsa.
• "Atmospheric pollutants", which monitors pollutants in urban air in Oslo and remote areas.

Goals

(from the Norwegian Environment Agency)
The purpose of the program is to provide information on levels of hazardous substances and the accumulation of new hazardous substances in food chains on land in urban and peri-urban areas. The data collected shall provide a basis for assessing hazards to health and the environment, and to identify the need for regulation of chemicals nationally and/or internationally.

This is what MILBY does:

• Reports concentrations of selected pollutants at different trophic levels of a terrestrial food web in an urban area.
• Estimates the bioaccumulation and biomagnification potential of the various contaminants in food chains or food webs,
• Provide information on potential sources of pollutants for terrestrial organisms.

Link to presentation of MILBY, February 2024:

CIENS Breakfast webinar: Oslo-dyra er fulle av miljøgifter – og det er vår skyld. Men hvordan vet forskerne det?

Reports in the project

See the table below for reports from 2017 and forward

Earlier reports can be found here

Project

This SIS-project is designed in a close collaboration between NILU and NIVA with an overall objective to develop a methodological framework which can help with structure thinking and provide a systematic approach to the analysis of urban environmental sustainability.

The methodological framework will be developed based on the EEA’s urban sustainability conceptual framework and linking to UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), e.g., including the city context, key enabling factors, urban lenses and building blocks for urban sustainable development.

The following key specific thematic topics and research questions will be addressed in the project:

Nature-based solutions

• How to support cities towards more effective mitigation and adaptation to climate change?

Assessment of environmental contaminants in the urban environment

• How does the composition of environmental contaminants in the urban environments change, e.g., as a result of urbanization, climate change and sustainable measures?

Behavioral change and citizen engagement

• How to improve human behavior to minimize emissions and pollution exposure?

Well-being and health

• How to improve health and well-being by innovative solutions in urban sustainable transitions?

The SIS-project has been broken down into the following three working groups (WG).

• WG1 – Environmental contaminants
• WG2 – Operationalization of UN SDGs & measurement of urban sustainability
• WG3 – Assessment of municipal needs

The project results are expected to

• facilitate different forms of analysis and assessment of urban environmental sustainability that will help decision-makers to identify policy options and priorities; and
• underpin and support a transition to urban environmental sustainability.