The European Regional Development Fund recently awarded the Malta Environment and Planning Authority €5 million to develop national environmental monitoring infrastructure and capacity within Mepa.

The project aims to radically improve national monitoring capacity of the air, water, radiation, noise, and soil. It will involve the procurement of equipment, information management systems, environmental baseline surveys, staff training, and the enhancement of the national monitoring programmes in these five environmental themes.

The project also includes the development of an online information system to provide free access of all the data collected from the project.

Also involved in the project are other major stakeholders and users of environmental data: the University, the Malta Resources Authority, the Department of Environmental Health and the National Statistics Office.

A one-hour briefing session will be held on September 16 at 10.30 a.m. in Gateway Building Hall D1 to enable University staff and students to learn more about the project and give input on the collection methodologies and the development of the monitoring strategy.

Attendance to the session is free. To register to attend and/or to receive news on this project send an e-mail to the Institute for Sustainable Development on isd@um.edu.mt.