Abstract

In the yearly Environmental Balance reports and four yearly Environmental Outlook reports the information ideally will be largely presented as Environmental Indices. Environmental Indices are limited number of concise and appealing parameters to present the vast amount of information on environmental quality. This report defines the Environmental Indices for Soil and Groundwater, and also describes the monitoring programs and models which are available to assess the present and future values of these indices. The information in this report is by no means final, for one reason because it is based mainly on discussions within the RIVM. Discussions with other institutes are in full swing. These discussions are absolutely necessary to increase support for the selected indices and to solve many gaps and discrepancies in the definition and the quantification of the indices. After a short overview of the present Soil and Groundwater research at the RIVM, the selected indices are systematically discussed, per environmental theme. Next an overview is given of the presently available monitoring programs and simulation models. This overview is followed by systematic allocation of these monitoring programs and simulation models for diagnosis and prognosis of the selected indices. Finally the most important gaps and discrepancies with respect to definition and quantification are listed. This list will guide part of the future research.