For a cleaner Mediterranean by the year 2020
This initiative is funded by the European Commission through DG EuropeAid.

Battling to beat pollution in the Mediterranean Sea

on 14 Oct 2010.

The Mediterranean environment is one of the richest and at the same time most vulnerable in the world. A staggering 80% of its pollution comes from land-based sources. Rapid urbanisation together with increasing and unsustainable coastal tourism development is causing significant environmental and health problems – more than half the major urban areas do not have wastewater treatment plants and most of the wastewater they produce is discharged into the sea.

scoullosThe Mediterranean environment is one of the richest and at the same time most vulnerable in the world. A staggering 80% of its pollution comes from land-based sources. Rapid urbanisation together with increasing and unsustainable coastal tourism development is causing significant environmental and health problems – more than half the major urban areas do not have wastewater treatment plants and most of the wastewater they produce is discharged into the sea.

“H2020 tackles the sources of pollution that account for around 80% of the overall pollution of the Mediterranean Sea: municipal waste, urban wastewater and industrial pollution”, explains Professor Michael Scoullos, Team Leader of the Horizon 2020 Capacity Building/ Mediterranean Environment Programme, in an interview with the ENPI Info Centre.

In 2006, European Mediterranean Environment Ministers meeting in Cairo committed to a programme of targeted de-pollution of the Mediterranean Sea by 2020 – Horizon 2020 – providing appropriate financial resources and technical support to facilitate its implementation.

This is part of “The People behind the Projects”, a series of interviews with leaders of EU projects, funded by the ENPI Regional Programme. (ENPI Info Centre)

ENPI Info Centre - Battling to beat pollution in the Mediterranean Sea