A REVIEW OF THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE EU PROJECT QUASIMEME 1993-1996

The EU project 'QUASIMEME' was established to provide comprehensive kn owledge of the quality of chemical measurements made in marine monitor ing programmes, to determine the underlying causes of poor inter-labor atory agreement for these measurements and to provide stepwise improve ment. The quality of analytical performance of all laboratories in the scheme has been established. During the project, 32 laboratories have improved their performance, 18 were consistently good, 16 were consis tently poor and a further 10 have declined in performance. Overall, 34 of the 76 laboratories currently produce data which have >80% of valu es being satisfactory. Determinands and/or matrices which still presen t problems are low levels of ammonia in seawater, lead in biota, CB 28 , CB 105 and CB 156 and some of the organochlorine pesticides. (C) 199 7 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.