Report No DWI0228

Oct 1984

Under the EEC Dangerous Substances Directive, Member States are required to reduce pollution of both fresh and salt waters, resulting from the discharge of List II substances, by the Environmental Quality Objectives (EQO) approach. DOE have contracted WRC to recommend Environmental Quality Standards (EQSs) for selected List II substances. This report is one of a series of nine produced in fulfilment of the contract.

Common uses of vanadium are discussed and the chemistry of vanadium in water reviewed, Information is presented on the concentration of vanadium in the environment, with emphasis on UK and European waters and biota.

Because of the paucity of the available data EQSs have only been proposed for the protection of fish and other aquatic organisms in both fresh and salt waters and for the irrigation of crops. Even for these EQSs suitable information is limited.

The recommended EQS values are summarised in an annotated Table.

It is concluded that the recommended EQS values are consistent with measured concentrations in fresh and salt waters in the UK. Vanadium is not a cause of water pollution in the UK and it is therefore unlikely that these proposals will cause an increase in the cost of monitoring the quality of UK Waters.

Copies of this report may be available as an Acrobat pdf download under the 'Find Completed Research' heading on the DWI website.