ABSTRACT

The purpose of the project “Development of GIS of water quality management in the Dnipro Basin on the territory of the Republic of Belarus” was to create a software tool for prompt and comprehensive assessment of the quality of surface water in the Dnipro River and its tributaries. The overall goal of the project was to create an environmental database of the state of surface water in the Dnipro Basin on the Belarusian territory based on geo-informational technologies.

This is a final report on the development of a geo-informational system of water quality management in the Dnipro Basin on the Belarusian territory. This project became possible due to the financial support and the overall guidance of the Intentional Development Research Center (IDRC, Canada). The project was implemented with the support of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection of the Republic of Belarus. The project succeeded owning to the assistance of the UNDP-GEF Dnipro Basin Environment Programme, UN representative office in Belarus and Center for the preparation and implementation of international projects “EcologyInvest”.

Specialists in informational technologies, water quality assessment, hydrology and water management from various research institutions of the Republic of Belarus took part in this project. The software was basically developed by the specialists of the Central Research Institute for Integrated Water Use (CRIIWU) at the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection of the Republic of Belarus on the basis of the licensed software and equipment acquired as a part of this project. The acquired software includes the following programs: the ESRI ArcView 3.3 and the SKE Dynamic Atlas. In addition to the CRIIWU employees, specialists of the Hydrometeorological department of the Belarusian Environmental Ministry, company Belgorhimprom, and Land Management Surveying and Cartography Committee took part in the implementation of this project. The project was implemented under the general guidance of the head of the CRIIWU laboratory of water monitoring and water cadastre A.P. Stankevich. Researches of the CRIIWU laboratory of water monitoring and water cadastre V.N.Korneev, A.P.Dalimaev, A.V. Pakhomov, P.Yu.Afanasiev, S.G.Kozhemiakin, and researchers of other institutions took part in the project. The head of the CRIIWU laboratory of water protection technologies and hydro-ecological feasibility studies A.A.Fediaev acted as a research supervisor of the project. Russian and Ukrainian specialists were involved in the project to ensure integrity of the structure of environmental databases of the Dnipro Basin of the three riparian states and integrity of the formats of initial information as well as to develop specific software modules.

The complete version of GIS of surface water quality management in the Dnipro Basin on the Belarusian territory (WatGIS) was presented at a workshop in Pinsk (Belarus) on 3-4 October 2002. The workshop was attended by the representative of oblast committees for natural resources and environmental protection (Homel, Brest) and the Ministry of Natural Resources And Environmental Protection of Belarus, who were the target users of WatGIS. The software was improved to consider the comments and propositions of its potential users. Information of the state water cadastre obtained from the monitoring stations of the Environmental Ministry located at the points of waste water discharge was added to the database; tests were run to assess the accuracy of its various attributes (water pollution indices, average annual indices, etc.). WatGIS was installed at the Minsk city committee for natural resources and environmental protection, oblast committees for natural resources and environmental protection (Minsk, Vitebsk, Mohilev, Brest, Homel oblasts) and at the analytical and monitoring department of the Environmental Ministry that are the major agents of water quality management in the Dnipro Basin. The appropriate hardware was procured as a part of this project and delivered to the end-users to run WatGIS.

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

GIS – Geo-informational system

WatGIS – Geo-informational system of water quality management in the Dnipro basin on the territory of the Republic of Belarus

WPI – Water pollution index

     NSEM – National system of environmental monitoring

1. GENERAL PROVISIONS

1.1 The intended purposes of the GIS of water quality management in the Dnipro Basin on the Belarusian territory:

-  to provide accurate visual information on water quality in the Dnipro Basin on the Belarusian territory to the state agencies managing the environmental state of the Dnipro Basin in Belarus, such as Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection and its divisions, Minsk city committee of natural resources and environmental protection, and Vitebsk, Mohilev, Minsk, Brest and Homel oblast committees of natural resources and environmental protection;

-  to provide accurate visual information on water quality in the Dnipro Basin on the Belarusian territory to all concerned users including NGOs and international organizations;

1.2 Basic principles and special features of WatGIS creation:

-  realistic approach to the establishment of the terms of completion, scopes of funding, technical and technological means of creation of WatGIS;

-  computer-aided arrangement of the environmental information available for the Dnipro Basin within the Belarusian territory into a system best suited for the development stage of WatGIS;

-  the prevailing course towards accumulation and processing of hydro-environmental information at the development stage of WatGIS;

-  taking into account actual information flows within the systems of water quality monitoring as well as hydrological and hydro-chemical indices;

-  the prevailing of the basin principle of the accumulation and use of hydro-ecological information;

-  two levels of use of the system (at the second level of use WatGIS is operated by any users with the help of specifically developed user menu and well-developed system of prompts, this does not require any special training; at the first level the functions of WatGIS are expanded through the connection of other applications, it can be operated by the users who have had special training in their use);

-  responsiveness to the prospective uses of WatGIS for the Dnipro Basin management including its use at the international level;

WatGIS has being developed by the specialists of CRIIWU at the Environmental Ministry of Belarus on the basis on the licensed software and equipment procured at the costs of this project.

WatGIS application was installed at the CRIIWU and at the divisions of the Environmental Ministry (the oblast committees and Minsk city committee of natural resources and environmental protection).

1.3 Requirements to WatGIS:

-  any appropriately structured information can be fed into WatGIS;

-  this information can be transformed according to the applied GIS-technologies;

-  the possibility of data correction and data smoothing.

1.4 Main informational sources of WatGIS:

1.  The published information of the State Water Cadastre on the resources and quality of the water of the national monitoring system;

2.  The data of the State Water Cadastre obtained from the monitoring stations sited near the points of wastewater discharge of the industrial enterprises located in the Dnipro Basin on the Belarusian territory.

1.5 General requirements to the WatGIS components:

-  the appropriate hardware (computers and periphery to feed in, retrieve, store, process, document and transmit the information);

-  the appropriate software (for general and specific uses);

-  basic cartographic support based on the selected GIS tools ensuring that the data are being fed into the database in the WatGIS formats.

1.6 General Requirements to WatGIS performance:

Informational support of the WatGIS project by means of updating of the database, regular control over the routine adjustments of the WatGIS operation, including the ones expected in the future, and upgrading of the software.

1.7 Requirements of standards and legislation:

Following are the documents used in WatGIS that are currently in force in Belarus:

-  environmental legislation and standard-setting framework;

-  the standards of water management and water protection;

1.8 The tasks fulfilled during the creation of WatGIS:

-  the available information on the quality of surface water in the Dnipro Basin in Belarus has been reviewed and analyzed;

-  technical task of the project has been developed;

-  technical specifications for the software and hardware needed for the implementation of the project prepared, the software and hardware has been bought and installed;

-  the core group of project implementers has been trained at a special training center for geo-informational technologies “GISproject”;

-  the structure of the database has been created and the database client application have been developed;

-  the initial hydro-chemical data on water quality in the Dnipro Basin have been obtained according to all measured indices (up to 56) from all 82 monitoring stations of the hydrometeorology department for the period from 1989 to 2002 and converted into electronic format;

-  the application generating standard user queries and corresponding output forms has been developed and debugged;

-  thematic layers of the 1:500 000 electronic map of the Dnipro Basin reflecting all major water management aspects (location of the satiations of the hydrometeorology department monitoring hydro-chemical regimes of the rivers, location of the stations of the Environmental ministry monitoring hydro-chemical regime near the points of wastewater discharge, the boundaries of the basin’s catchment area, etc.) have been prepared;

-  first version of GIS has been presented at the workshop in Pinsk (Belarus) on 3 –4 October 2002 to its major users and has been positively assessed;

-  the software has been improved to enhance the user interface, to handle import and export (conversion ) of data from/into MsExcell format, etc.;

-  the initial hydro-chemical data on water quality in the Dnipro Basin have been obtained according to all measured indices (up to 56) from 168 major stations of the Environmental Ministry monitoring hydro-chemical regime at the points of wastewater discharge for the period from 1989 to 2002 and converted into electronic format;

- a program module that updates the database on the monitoring stations of the Environmental Ministry with the information of the State Water Cadastre;

- a user guide has been produced;

-  the software has been installed and tested; the personnel of the Minsk city and Vitebsk, Homel, Brest, Minsk, and Mohilev oblast committees of natural resources and environmental protection has been trained in its use.

1.9 WatGIS soft- and hardware

WatGIS software consists of operational software, special software and applied software.

Operational software includes the following:

-  operational system (Windows NT 4.0/XP/9*/2000)

-  office applications (MsOffice 97/2000).

Special software are the basic GIS applications for graphic work stations: systems for collection, storage, search and visualization of spatial data of the research area. These are MapInfo Professional 5.0, ArcView 3.3, Dynamic Atlas (Dynamic Maps v 3.0, Dynamic Maps v.3.0 Service Pack), and the series of PERENOS applications, developed by the CRIIWU specialists to model transportation of the breakdown pollution discharges within the Dnipro Basin. Standard specialized software VisualFoxPro 6.0 was used to create a database client to provide access, process user queries, generate samplings according to them, etc. Dynamic Knowledgebase v 3.0 was used to create an application in the Dynamic Atlas environment, and Web Maps Server v 3.0 was used to ensure remote access to the database.

Applications developed by users as a part of the project include program modules developed with the use of general systemic and specialized software. Major components of these applications were developed as program scripts MapInfo Professional 5.0, ArcView 3.3 and VisualFoxPro 6.0.

WatGIS hardware consists of a modern PC with at least 64 MB RAM, 32-digit CPU, 20 GB HDD and the following periphery:

-  SVGA monitor with the appropriate video adaptor,

-  A3 size pad scanner;

-  A4 size printer;

-  A1 size color plotter;

-  Fax modem;

Uninterruptible power supply unit(UPS)

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.

3. CURRENT APPROACHES TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF DATABASES OF WATER QUALITY IN THE RIVER BASINS

Easy access to environmental monitoring data is an essential aspect of water quality management of a river basin. Modern technologies and computer applications enable easy accumulation, storage, processing and representation of environmental data.

As a rule, environmental databases consist of the following three parts: databases of spatially referred information, attributive databases and databases of environmental monitoring. The attributive databases are a nexus between the data on geographic location of objects and information on their morphological, hydrologic and other characteristics. (For geographers, water quality monitoring stations are described with their longitude and latitude, which determine all the rest of their features, whereas for hydrographers water quality monitoring stations are described with the distance from them to the river mouth, which describes the features of the object). In most of the cases, water quality databases have similar structures. Thus a typical database has the following obligatory fields: “object code”, “geographic coordinates”, “index code”, “day/month/year”, “methodology and method of control”, “monitoring agency”.

The information is fed in and updated by means of Internet-based applications. Sample diagram of information exchange between water users, controlling agencies and environmental monitoring bodies is shown in fig.2.

Fig.2. Sample diagram of information exchange between water users, controlling agencies and environmental monitoring bodies.

The users of the environmental database can be divided into several groups according to the functions they perform. The first group of users is the environmental monitoring bodies and database developers. The have the right to read, add and alter monitoring data. In the case of geo-informational system of the Dnipro basin, these are the structural divisions of the Environmental Ministry of Belarus where WatGIS has been installed and the CRIIWU departments, which are the developers of this software. The second group of users is governmental bodies and management specialists. They have the right to read all monitoring data and add some data related to the management decision making. In the case of geo-informational system of the Dnipro basin, this is the department for monitoring and analytical control at the Belarusian Environmental Ministry, where WatGIS has been installed. Such discrimination of users enables prompt and flexible access to the environmental monitoring data. Upon further upgrading, WatGIS will not only provide the function of data manipulations (adding and changing of the monitoring data, creation of data sampling), but also have properties of a decision making support system (modeling system, expert system, etc.).

Examples of organization of water quality databases

Example 1.

Source: Water-Quality Data Files – NSWQM (archive)

In this database, the water-quality and stream flow data sets are available for 679 locations in the United States including 63 HBN stations from 1962 to 1995 and 618 NASQAN stations from 1973 to 1995.

Supporting information identifies and describes the water-quality and stream flow stations and watersheds, water-quality constituents, and the methods, remarks, laboratories, sample-collection agencies, and the laboratory measurement accuracy associated with the water-quality data.

Information is presented broken region-wise (Fig.3. Selection of the corresponding region number from the list).

Fig.3. Example of a region-wise presentation of information in the environmental GIS, currently operating in the USA.

For each of the 21 water-resource region there is a list of monitoring stations. The information on each of the station is presented in the following format:

1. The USGS code of the station;

2. Name of the station;

3. Hydrological association code;

4. The area of the drainage basin covered by the monitoring station;

5. Administrative association;

6. Coordinates in projections;

7. Identifier of the network;

8. Date of start/end of alterations;

9. Population of the basin;

10. Characterization of the land management;

11. Association with the basin according to the hydrological classification.

The water-quality and stream flow data are described in the following way.

Within each of the 21 water-resources regions, the water quality and stream flow data are organized in separate station and parameter files. The name of each file is ssssssss.ttt where ssssssss is the 8-digit USGS station number, and ttt is:

ALK for alkalinity, bicarbonate, and carbonate parameters,

BIO for biological parameters,

DMV for daily mean values of stream flow,

MAJ for major dissolved ions,

NUT for nutrients, suspended sediment, and organic carbon,

RAD for radiochemical parameters.

Each data file has the same structure for the first 48 characters.

Table 4. Structure of the data files of the USGS database (USA)

The remaining portion of the record is arranged according to the type of the group to which this file belongs (ALK, BIO, DMV, etc.).

Queries to the database are strictly standardized and hierarchically arranged, the results of the queries are presented as text files.

Table 5. Structure of a query in the USGS system (USA).

Selection of a region

1..21

                      Selection of a station

                        0..ssssssss

                                                            Selection of a group of indices

                                                0..ttt

                                                                      Result

                                                                                Ssssssss.ttt

Example 2.

Source: http://www.iksms-cipms.org/

At present most basin commissions have their Internet sites, which contain much information including data on water quality of water bodies in the basin and their hydrologic properties.

Working with such sections is identical in most of the cases. First user should select a water body or a monitoring station (fig.4).

Fig.4. Selection of a monitoring station in the GIS of joint basin of the rivers Mosse and Saar.

Then the user obtains information about this water body (name, geographic code, monitoring body, duration of observations, etc.) (fig.5).

Fig.5. Representation of the information about the selected monitoring station in the GIS of joint basin of the rivers Mosse and Saar.

In certain cases user can select a list of parameters for the query and the period of sampling (fig.6).

Fig.6. Selection of a monitoring station form the list of parameters in the GIS of joint basin of the rivers Mosse and Saar.

In most of the cases, the results of the query are presented in a text file in an ASCII format, formalized and structured according to the fields of the Database (fig.7).

Fig.7. Results of processing of a query in a typical database.

In some cases user may receive an XLS file for further assessment and analysis of the data and drawing of the graphs.

Having analyzed the existing databases of water quality, we have come to the following conclusions:

1. Databases of water quality in many EU countries and the USA have identical structures and a number of similar fields (sections).

2. Geo-informational technologies are widely used for selection and representation of query results.

3. Query results are represented in text files or standardized database files.

4. Databases are created in Windows-compatible applications.

Water quality databases are widely used as an important tool during the organization of national and basin water resource commissions. 

4. STRUCTURE OF GIS OF SURFACE WATER QUALITY MANAGEMENT IN THE DNIPRO BASIN ON THE BELARUSIAN TERRITORY.

WatGIS was developed on the basis of an approach that combines database management systems and electronic maps of a modeling object, i.e. integrated method. In this case, electronic maps with thematic layers were embedded in a conventional database management system. This approach ensures compatibility with the existing databases and simplifies their operation because it preserves the GIS interface, which is already customary for users.

The database created as a part of this project was integrated with the existing databases and applications, which were developed in CRIIWU earlier. These include:

-  basic GIS for Belarus (basic layers (hydrography, administrative-economic division, topography, industrial facilities, etc.);

-  automated informational system “Hydrochemistry”;

-  automated informational system “Statistical reporting of water users 2OS-Water”;

-  mathematic models of transportation of breakdown pollutant discharges in the Dnipro Basin PERENOS.

GIS of surface water quality management in the Dnipro Basin on the Belarusian territory (WatGIS) consists of [1] database files of quantitative and qualitative indices for monitoring stations of the National Surface Water Monitoring System (NSWMS), [2] data files of qualitative indices for the monitoring stations located at the points of wastewater discharge, geographic shape-files of cartographic information about the Dnipro Basin in the appropriate for publishing format, and [3] applications including a database management program that maintains user interface, and program modules that operate the map and database, ensure input and correction of the initial data and represent the results of user queries in tabular and graphic formats (graphs, thematic maps, etc.).

The structure of GIS of surface water quality management in the Dnipro Basin on the Belarusian territory is show in the fig.8.

The initial information has been imparted a structure in WatGIS; the form, formats and number of database tables have been identified. The database of GIS of surface water quality management in the Dnipro Basin is created on the basis of the following files containing tabular data:

-  Fragment.dbf – general data on sub-basins of the Dnipro River;

-  Chem_gm.dbf – list of parameters included in WatGIS (the list consists of 56 titles), MACs of various pollutants, etc.;

-  IZV_class.dbf – WPI classification;

-  Shape-files of cartographic information for the Dnipro Basin;

-  Gidro.dbf – measured index values for the monitoring stations of the hydrometeorology department;

-  Gidro_vv.dbf – measured index values for the monitoring stations of the Environmental Ministry located at the points of waste water discharges of industrial enterprises;

The Structure of the files of WatGIS database is represented in tables 6-8.

Table 6.  The structure of Gidro.dbf and Gidro_VV.dbf files with the initial data according to the hydro-chemical and hydrological indices.