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

The overall aim of our study is to develop a concept model to estimate emissions (the following components are included:  CO2, BC, CH4, NH3, NMVOC, PM10, PM2.5 and NOx) from construction activity based on bottom-up principles.

Such a model will allow for estimates of emissions at different levels, i.e., from the individual construction site to municipality and up to national level.

To our knowledge, there is no existing modelling approach that provides this information nor any prior assessment of comprehensive basis for its development. The most critical aspect for designing such an approach is the availability of reliable input data that allows defining the activity that generates emissions and their spatial and temporal distribution.

In the first phase of the project, the aim is to map the available input data, evaluate them and set up the basis for a potential bottom-up emission model for NRMM in building and construction. The second phase is to develop a model that provides high resolution emissions from construction activity in Norway.