Project funding and
durationRisk Assessment of groundwater pollution by interaction with surface waters affected by pulp and paper mills, north-west Russia.
Objectives and summary of
project
Project-No.: IC15 CT98-0134
Project Funding: European Community (INCO-Copernicus
programme)
Project Duration: September 1998 - August 2001
Objectives and Summary of the Project
The serious surface and groundwater pollution in the north-western region of
Russia (Lake Ladoga and Lake Onega region) is mainly caused by pulp and paper
mill effluents. The river Neva, the outlet of Lake Ladoga, is the main raw
water source for drinking water production for more than 6 million people, most
of them living in St.Petersburg. Whereas former and recent investigations
concentrated on river and lake water quality, there is a serious lack of
knowledge about groundwater pollution and the various effects of interaction of
groundwater and surface water. Until now, evaluations of surface water
pollution only considered direct waste water inflow. An important long-term
contribution of highly polluted groundwater is expected but has not been
investigated and quantified. A higher rate of illness and mortality of the
population living near to the industrial sites is known, but not the effects of
consuming untreated water derived from groundwater by domestic wells in the
villages.
The main objective is a complex risk assessment of groundwater pollution by direct inputs from pulp and paper mills and indirect inputs by interaction with surface waters from lakes and artificial ponds used for waste water storage and infiltration. Because of the much higher level of pollution, risk assessment tools used in Europe are not applicable without adaptation to the specific problems of the region. In Russia, developed scientific risk assessment approaches are different from European methods and can contribute to further developments in this field. The following objectives will be undertaken in the working parts:
1) Evaluation of different risk assessment methods and their adaption for contributing to the development of new methods (e.g. the Russian method EXERGIA) applicable under the specific conditions.
2) Case studies at three representative sites of the region including field investigations and laboratory experiments to obtain additional data necessary for risk assessment and modelling.
3) Investigations of groundwater and surface water interactions resulting in groundwater pollution by organics and salts, in increasing groundwater levels due to thick siltation layers in lakes and rivers, and in changing groundwater flow regimes.
4) Modelling groundwater flow, mass transport and biogeochemical processes.
5) Development of a risk assessment for application under the specific conditions in the region.
6) Generalisation of results, the development of integrative criteria for risk assessment of groundwater pollution, the development of strategies for the decrease of the impact of pulp and paper mill effluents on groundwater and the application of the developed risk assessment method for the Lake Ladoga and Lake Onega region.
The main scientific results will be the comparison and further development of risk assessment methods applicable on sites with very high pollution levels, and the improvement of scientific knowledge about groundwater and surface water interaction. Based on the created scientific data base and the modelling results, a prognosis will be made for the future impact of polluted groundwater inflow on surface water resources and on drinking water quality in the villages around the pulp and paper mills. The presentation of the applied risk assessment tools and the results at the yearly international conference in St.Petersburg and at the final conference of the project will give important information, especially about the ranking of necessary measures and site sanitations, for the local and state authorities and EC policies. The effective research network between 4 NIS partners and 3 EU partners will support the active scientists and their research activities under the scientific coordination of scientists from Russia.
EU partners:
Technical University of Dresden (TUD), Germany.
University of East Anglia (UEA), United Kingdom.
College for Science and Technics Dresden (HTW), Germany.
NIS Partners:
St. Petersburgh State University (SPbSU), Russia.
North-West Polytechnical Institute (NWPI), Russia.
The Institiute of Health Protection (IHP), Ukraine.
(no link available at this time)
The State University of Ocean Technology (SUOT),
Russia.
(no link available at this time)
The input of the UEA to this project so far has been:
1) A Risk Assessment review covering:
The use of RA in protecting drinking water resources.
2) Production of a Groundwater Vulnerability map for the Ladoga/Onega region using a Geographical Information System (see below).
Current input involves the development of a computer based probabilistic RA model linking:
Paper production.
However, data collection and collation is still ongoing, thus many of those parameters outlined above are yet to be fully quantified.
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a.foley@uea.ac.uk
Last updated Jan. 2000
