Assistance to the Republic of Serbia in the Implementation of MEAs and EU Obligations through Improvement of Pollution Monitoring of Soil Quality at Industrial Sites

In the frame of the fruitful bilateral cooperation between Italy and Serbia on environmental protection and sustainable development topics, in 2016 the Directorate for Sustainable Development, Environmental Damage, European Union and International Affairs of the Italian Ministry of Environment Land and Sea granted a contribution to the GEF funded project “Enhanced Cross-sectoral Land Management through Land Use Pressure Reduction and Planning”, executed by UN Environment Vienna Programme Office.

The project “Assistance to the Republic of Serbia in the Implementation of MEAs and EU Obligations through the Improvement of Pollution Monitoring of Soil Quality at Industrial Sites”aims at expanding
and extending the scope of application of the UN Environment/GEF project by helping Serbian authorities to set up a national soil pollution monitoring system in compliance with the major
international environmental agreements (i.e. the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, the UN Sendai Framework Convention on Risk Reduction) and with the EU environmental standards.
The Italian Ministry of Environment, Land and Sea, together with a number of Italian National specialized agency, such as theItalian National Institute for Environmental Protection and Research
(ISPRA), theItalian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA), theItalian Health Institute (ISS), and theInstitute for Insurance Against
Accidents at Work (INAIL), provided technical assistance to the Serbian counterparts, both the Ministry of Agriculture and Environmental Protection and the Serbian Environment Protection
Agency (SEPA).

A number of training courses and field visits have been organized over the implementation year in order to strengthen Serbian national capacities for monitoring soil quality and identifying pollution at
industrial sites. A specific focus has been set on the chemical industrial sites ofŠabac and Loznica.The project also actively supported theprocess of accreditation of SEPA for soil sampling and provided
Serbian colleagues with relevant technical laboratory equipment, such as an Atomic Absorption Spectrometer (AAS), Data server storage system and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for
investigation of suspected contaminated sites.