Francesca Spataro is on the stage, a senior researcher from the National Research Council of Italy, Institute of Polar Science.

Okay, thank you.

We are approaching the end of this day, but let me introduce myself.

I am Francesca Spataro from the Institute of Polar Sciences, as said by Gianmarco, and The down.

I am part of a research group and our work focuses on persistent and emerging organic contaminants and in particular the research activities span from the development of analytical methods for the detection of this contaminants in different environmental matrices to the to studying their sources distribution and fate in different in natural ecosystem also in relation to the climate change we investigate also the interaction between contamination and biosphere in terms of effects on microbial communities by accumulation and by augmentation across the trophic web and the evaluation of the potential risks associated to the occurrence in the environment of single compounds on chemical mixture of contaminants in natural ecosystems.

Among persistent organic contaminants, our activities focus on several classes of contaminants, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, polychlorobiphenyl, all the new generation pesticides and flame retardants.

These contaminants are included among the contaminants of concern, and the concern for these compounds can be related to their chemical and physical properties, giving to them Some peculiar characteristics such as high persistence, high affinity for fatty tissues, semi-volatile nature and low water solubility, the ability to be long-range transported and toxicity because they are known for their effect on health causing diseases such as cancer and endocrine disrupting.

So are we monitoring pollution in the Arctic Fjords effectively or it is a chemical thing that we are not monitoring effectively?