Current State of Water Quality Monitoring in the Dnipro Basin with regard to the use of this Information in Watgis

2. CURRENT STATE OF WATER QUALITY MONITORING IN THE DNIPRO BASIN WITH REGARD TO THE USE OF THIS INFORMATION IN WATGIS

The state of surface water in the Dnipro Basin on the Belarusian territory is monitored by various departments, which purse the following goals:

- hydro-chemical control over the pollution of watercourses and control over the pollution sources (Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection);

- monitoring of the background composition of natural waters, environmental state of water bodies, registration of surface outflow (the Republican Hydrometeorology Center (RHC), and the Republican Center for Environmental Monitoring and Radiation Control (RCEMRC), hydrometeorology department (Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection));

- control over the sanitary-hygienic state of the waters, which directly affect human health as people have direct contact with them (Health Ministry).

At present the scheme of monitoring of surface water in the Dnipro Basin consists of the following four basic components:

- the network of permanent and occasional field stations of the Ministry of Natural Resources that monitor the quality of wastewater discharged into the rivers as well as the quality of the river water upstream and downstream of the point of discharge (168 field stations that monitor major wastewater discharges into water bodies);

- the network of 82 permanent field stations of the hydrometeorology department (table 1) monitoring the quality of surface water.

Table 1. List of field stations of the NSEM of hydrometeorology department monitoring surface water quality in the Dnipro Basin.

Field stations monitoring surface water bodies and industrial effluents are evenly sited on the Belarusian territory. They provide a fair idea of hydrological regime of the basin. However the significant drawback is the lack of data on the outflow regime of the most south tributaries of the Pripiat River (flowing from the Ukrainian territory).

Hydro-chemical monitoring stations in the Dnipro Basin on the Belarusian territory are sited near the major industrial centers of the basin and fully illustrate the hydro-chemical regime of water courses, including human-induced changes. The quality of river water is regularly monitored at the RHC stations, which have operated for a rather long period.

The site and the frequency of sampling are identified by subdivisions of the Environmental Ministry based on the criteria of the presence of sources of pollution of natural watercourses and degree of their risk.

The quality of water and its sanitary-bacteriological state at the recreational sites is regularly monitored by oblast hygiene and epidemiological centers and raion sanitary epidemiological stations. Agencies of sanitary-epidemiological control take samples to monitor the sanitary-hygienic and epidemiological state of water bodies at fixed intervals determined by chief doctors of the regional hygiene and epidemiological centers (HEC).

The major criteria for the selection of the cites and interval of sampling used by divisions of the Environmental Ministry are the degree of anthropogenic load, availability of hydrological stations, hydrological phases and periods of vegetation of hydro-biocenosis. The Ministry’s basic monitoring network in the Dnipro Basin is a part of the NSEM surface water monitoring network. Intervals of sampling range from 4 to 12 samplings a year. This enables to assess the changes in state of water environment under the influence of natural and human-induced factors within the interval of time from one month to one year. The main parameters of surface water quality are listed in table 2.

Table 2. Hydro-chemical and other indices of the quality of surface water in the Dnipro basin on the Belarusian territory.

Water quality standards used in WatGIS to assess the quality of surface waters are based on the maximum allowable concentrations (MAC) of pollutants in the water. Quality standards, which determine MAC of pollutants, are established for the following three types of water use: drinking water supply, fish industry reservoirs and recreational use. The system of Environmental Ministry applies the most rigid standards for the assessment of surface water of fish industry reservoirs. MAC for fish industry reservoirs are established in compliance with the rules of surface water protection approved by the State Environmental Committee of the USSR, 21 February 1991. MAC for municipal and domestic use are established according to the sanitary rules and standards 10-113 RB 99. Table 3 lists Water Quality Standards adopted in the Republic of Belarus for fish industry reservoirs and municipal and domestic use.

Table 3. Water quality standards adopted in the Republic of Belarus for fish industry reservoirs and municipal and domestic use.

- is not monitored

* increase in the natural background content

** summer temperature of the water after the discharge of wastewater into must not exceed the average monthly temperature of the hottest month in last 10 years by more than 3^оC ( if these data are not available, MAC is established at 28^оC )

*** total content of all its forms

The comprehensive index of surface water quality, adopted within the system of the Environmental Ministry and used in WatGIS is the water pollution index (WPI), based on the estimation of the content of six priority pollutants in the surface water expressed in MAC units.

WPI is defined according to the “Methodological guidelines for comprehensive assessment of the quality of surface and sea water according to the hydrochemical indices. M. 1990.” WPI for a monitoring well is calculated on the basis of six priority water quality indices according to the following formula:

 (1)

C_i – concentration of the i-index, MAC_i – maximum allowable concentration according to the i-index based on the “Genera list of maximum allowable concentrations (MAC) and tentatively safe degrees of pollutant effect (TSDPE) for water used reservoirs used in fish industry. M.: Minrybhoz USSR, 1990.”, which is currently effective in Belarus. WPI is calculated based on the average annual concentrations of six ingredients, the following two of which are compulsory: dissolved oxygen and BOD₅. The other four are selected based on the MAC excess priorities. The following additional four parameters are used to calculate WPT on the basis of the data of the National System of Environmental Monitoring: ammonium nitrogen, nitrite nitrogen, zinc, oils. The following seven classes of water pollution are defined on the WPI basis (Fig.1).

Fig.1. WPI based classification of water quality.

The existing monitoring system does not allow tracking of the abrupt and short-term changes of the controlled parameters and is unable to send early warning of emergency situations.

The drawbacks of the existing monitoring network and of the scope of its functions include:[1] excessive hydrochemical information produced by joined efforts of all organizations, [2] absence of the accompanying hydrometric measurements during sampling and hydrochemical analysis. In practice the hydrometeorology department applies the estimation methods based on the information received from the nearby hydrologic stations, whereas other organizations conducting the monitoring find it impossible to assess pollution of watercourses, moreover the pollutant transportation (including the transboundary one).

Current system of provision of monitoring information to concerned water users, in the first place for the purposes of water management has the following drawbacks: insufficient promptness and absence of visual (cartographic) representation of the information. The information on surface water quality is chiefly provided in hydro-chemic yearbooks, which carry the initial data on water quality at all monitoring stations of the hydrometeorology department in a table form. Thus, it is necessary to develop and install modern GIS-based databases.

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