Working Meeting and New Scientific Progress on Activity 4 of the Research Program of the Project “Clean Technologies for a Sustainable Environment – Water, Waste, Energy for a Circular Economy”

On November 15, 2019, another working meeting was held to report on the results achieved and coordinate future scientific tasks in the implementation of Activity 4 of the research program of the Competence Center project Clean & Circle. The meeting was attended by the project coordinator, Prof. DSc. Yana Topalova, the operational manager, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Irina Schneider, the scientific manager, Prof. Dr. Irina Ribarova, as well as representatives of all partners involved in the implementation of the activity. The host of the meeting was the Faculty of Hydraulic Engineering at UACEG.

Activity 4 is part of Work Package 1: Water /Direction: Indication, Monitoring and Control, and is related to determining the ecological status of water bodies (water and sediments), analyzing and ranking the impact of pollution sources on the ecological status of water bodies. The lead partner in the implementation of the activity is the team from Sofia University – Faculty of Biology, with other partners being Sofia University – Faculty of Physics, Sofia University – Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy, UACEG – Faculty of Hydraulic Engineering, Institute of Organic Chemistry with Centre of Phytochemistry – BAS, and the Institute of Microbiology – BAS.

Work on the activity has been ongoing since the start of the project, with all planned scientific tasks already initiated, including:

• determining the ecological status of water bodies, as well as assessing sediment status in relation to the functioning of technological water cycles;
• creating maps of critical ecotone zones with color and software imaging of the ecological status of waters and sediments in water bodies;
• developing strategies for risk management and detoxification biodegradation processes based on laboratory-scale process modeling;
• strategies for targeted and efficient monitoring of technologized ecosystems, such as cascades of small hydropower plants;
• developing new methods and combinations of methods for assessing pollution and self-purification processes;
• developing a ranking strategy based on the most important parameters for restoring the resource value of waters and sediments – 1/ pollutants, 2/ pollution, 3/ generated problems;
• producing software products suitable for end-users, ready for rapid application in the assessment of pollutants, pollution, and problems.

The leading researchers, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Jovana Todorova (SU – Faculty of Biology) and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Galina Dimova (UACEG – Faculty of Hydraulic Engineering), together with colleagues from the other partners, presented the scientific results obtained so far. Jointly, the team implementing the activity analyzed and identified environmental problems related to water technological cycles, water abstraction, and discharges in the Iskar River basin, pinpointing significant pollution sources and critical zones where satisfactory ecological status is not achieved. Based on this, working maps of significant pollution sources in the Iskar River basin and of ecological status (UACEG–FHE and SU–FB) were prepared and presented at the meeting. The concept for a software application to determine ecological status, linked to a common database of pollutants in the project’s cloud environment, was also presented. In parallel, tasks related to the methodological aspects of the activity are being carried out. The teams of SU–FCP and SU–FP are in the process of publishing the first newly developed methods under the project for determining pollutants in water. The unique equipment purchased for the project partner IOCCP–BAS is operational, and the innovative methods introduced have enormous analytical potential.

At the meeting, a concept was approved for future sampling and an experimental plan for collecting a targeted large-scale dataset in the coming months, in coordination with the associated partner Sofiyska Voda AD.

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