13th Needle/Leaf Interlaboratory Comparison Test 2010/2011 : Further Development and implementation of an EU-Level Forest Monitoring System - Futmon - : Technical Report LIFE+ QA-RFoliar10 in Cooperation with the International Cooperative Programme on Assessment and Monitoring of Air Pollution Effects on Forests (ICP Forests)

Wien

2010

31 S. + Annex-Results

Monographie

978-3-902762-03-0

169428

60 laboratories in 29 countries participated in the 13th Needle/Leaf Interlaboratory Test. With the start of the Life+ project Further development and Implementation of an EU-Level Forest Monitoring System (FutMon) at the beginning of 2009, QA/QC activities are financed for all countries participating in this project. There is a new system for qualification and re-qualification started with the 11th test in 2009. This system was enlarged after the manual update 2010 to all ICP-Forests partners (see
König et al. 2010, Rautio et al. 2010, Pitman et al. 2010). With the ring test report each participant received a qualification report. It has been decided to qualify the results of each parameter separately. If 50% or more (two, three or all four samples) of the results for this parameter for all the samples of the ring test are within the tolerable limits, the laboratory is qualified. Re-qualification is mandatory for all ICP-Forests laboratories, if monitoring results (foliage, litterfall, ground vegetation) will be submitted to PCC Hamburg.
This quality feedback and the following improvement in the practical laboratory work show a clear improvement in the quality of the laboratory results. The results of the most of participating laboratories are in the 13th Interlaboratory Comparison Test better than before. Only the following participants, which have a higher percentage of non-tolerable results (above 20%) of the total results, have bigger QC/QA-problems in their laboratory: A76 (62.5%), A77 (62.5%), A74 (27.5%), F21 (25.0%), A62 (25.0%), A57 (22.7%) and A59 (20.8%). Two laboratories A76 and A77 participate at the first time and want only to check their carbon and nitrogen results. An improvement in quality (compared with the last test) for nitrogen, sulphur, phosphorous, calcium, magnesium, carbon, iron, copper, lead, cadmium and boron
can be found. The questionnaire about the status of the QA/QC system was returned by 53 laboratories - 26 of these laboratories are accredited now and two laboratories plan an accreditation within 1-2 years.
Control charts are used as a quality control instrument in daily routine - only three of the 53 laboratories are using no control charts.