What are environmental quality criteria?
The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency’s Criteria for Environmental Quality Assessments constitute a system of classification which facilitates the interpretation of environmental data. The system can be used to determine whether measured values are low or high in relation to either a national average or baseline readings.
Many thousands of measurements and observations have been made of Swedish environmental conditions over the years. Nobody can claim there is a lack of data on the state of the Swedish environment.
But it is only when data is interpreted and contextualised that it becomes useful knowledge and information. Quite simply, we need something to compare it with. Comparison can tell us whether the present condition of the area under study varies from that of its surroundings, or from the original condition of the area.
Environmental quality criteria are designed to facilitate such comparison and interpretation. The reference material on which they are based consists mainly of chemical indices relating to the pollution situation, but there are also measures of biodiversity and of impacts on this from farming, forestry and other physical interventions.
The environmental quality criteria were completed at the end of 1998. Criteria have been published for groundwater, lakes and watercourses, coasts and seas, forest landscapes, agricultural landscapes, and contaminated sites.
In response to the EU Water Framework Directive, we have redrafted the quality criteria for lakes and watercourses and for coasts and seas. They have now been decided, and are only available (in Swedish):
Contact: Lars Klintwall, lars.klintwall(a)naturvardsverket.se