Specimen Banking: Environmental Monitoring and Modern Analytical Approaches

M.J. Schwuger The Environmental Specimen Bank is a repository of representative environ­ mental specimens for safe long-term storage over decades and centuries without any chemical change in the constituents. It represents the modern form of a systematically designed collection which will permit comparative analyses and evaluations of chemicals in the future. The aims - the determination of selected chemical compounds at the time of storage, - comparative investigations with new methods for chemicals which, at the time of storage, could not be determined or were not recognized as important, - observation of trends in the environment using authentic material from the past and - documentation of long-term changes. Environmental specimen banking is thus suitable for identifying environmental changes and initiating necessary measures of remediation. It may be used to identify problems, study correlations between cause and effect and determine the effectiveness of legislative measures as well as to recommend the activities required. This is not only ecologically important, but also relevant for man, since he is the last member in the food chain and is therefore affected by all compartments of the environment. For this reason, two banking systems were established in Germany, one for environmental specimens (Jiilich), and the other for human specimens (Miinster).