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Sources of Information of Data Quality Control
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8.1. Sources of Information of Data Quality Control
The sources of information used for this chapter were data on the geographical location of the Hot Spot towards one or another section of surface water body, including distance from the Hot Spot to the sources of drinking water supply and other important economic objects. Some information was obtained from the Joint statistical yearbooks for 2002, published in every oblast of Russian Federation belonging to the Dnipro River basin as well as from information bulletins of the State Sanitary Epidemiological Inspection, annually published for every subject of the Russian Federation. A part of information was obtained from official reporting of the enterprises by Form 2TP Vodkhoz. A considerable part of the information was taken from the questionnaires completed by the enterprises-water users.
According to the SLE&C methodology, the range of scores has been patterned “from 0 to 100”. In the summary table, this scoring scheme is adapted to be used with the scheme “from 0 to 5” (see Methodology, Chapter 3).
Factors directly related to pollution and water quality were qualified with respect to the criteria, developed in the preceding chapters: “Quality of Water and Human Health” and “Pollution Control”.
The primary information sources for ranking of the 15 selected Hot Spots (from an economic point of view) have included characteristics of the wastewater volume, the mass of pollutants and their concentration by specific ingredients.
By volume of wastewater, the specific weight of the 14 Hot Spots in the total volume of discharge to the Dnipro Basin is 77.8% (199.9 million m3) or 0.5% of the total Russian (56.3 billion m3) volume of wastewater introduced to natural water bodies.
By concentration in wastewater in the Dnipro Basin, the most significant pollutants are organic matters and suspended solids, nitrogen and phosphorus compounds and, among metals, iron, copper, zinc. Such pollutants as oil products, sulfates, zinc and fluoride exceed the established maximum admissible concentration (MAC) for fishery water bodies in 1-4 Hot Spots. Concentrations of chlorides, phenols, nitrates, SSAS, nickel and chromium do not exceed the MAC for any Hot Spot. There were no rhodonides, molybdenum, mercury, cobalt, and lead in any Hot Spot.
Through the consumption of the dissolved oxygen in the water, wastewater pollutants are able to oxidize. Excessive consumption of oxygen can result in its deficiencies in water and lead to eutrophication. Risk assessment for a specific wastewater is based on biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), which is a mandatory for monitored indicator. BOD is the amount of oxygen which is spent during a certain period of time for aerobic biochemical oxidation (decomposition) of unstable organic compounds contained in studied water. By this indicator (MAC = 3.0 mgO2/l), the highest concentrations were recorded for: Viazma Vodokanal 30.4 mgO2/l, Smolensk Gorvodokanal 12.5 mgO2/l, Safonovo Gorvodokanal 12,1 mgO2/l and Briansk Inter-district engineering services 8.9 mgO2/l. The mass of organic matters which is discharge into the water bodies from the 14 Hot Spots under consideration is 57.8% of the total discharged into the Dnipro Basin rivers, including Briansk Vodokanal 22.1%, Smolensk Gorvodokanal 15.2% and Kursk Vodokanal 12.9%.
By suspended solids (MAC = 0.25 mg/l), the highest concentrations were recorded for Safonovo Gorvodokanal 25.8 mg/l, Smolensk Gorvodokanal 17.2 mg/l and Briansk Vodokanal 14.5 mg/l. The mass of suspended solids discharged into the water bodies from the 14 Hot Spots under consideration is 58.5% of the total discharged into the Dnipro Basin rivers, including Briansk Vodokanal 21.3% and Smolensk Gorvodokanal 17.4%.
By concentration of phosphates (MAC = 0.2 mg/l), the highest contributer is Kursk Vodokanal 2.78 mg/l, Kurchatov Vodokanal 2.50 mg/l and Smolensk Gorvodokanal 2.12 mg/l. The mass of phosphates discharged into the water bodies from the 14 Hot Spots under consideration is 85.0% of the total discharged into the Dnipro Basin rivers, including Kursk Vodokanal 25.8%, Smolensk Gorvodokanal 23.1% and Briansk Vodokanal 18,7%.
By concentration of nitrogen ammonia (MAC = 0.39 mg/l) in wastewater, the largest contributer is Safonovo Gorvodokanal 14.7 mg/l, followed by Dorogobuzh (mineral fertilizers) 12.9 mg/l abd Viazma Vodokanal 9.9 mg/l. The mass of nitrogen ammonia discharged into the water bodies from the 14 Hot Spots under consideration is 68.2% of the total discharged in the Dnipro Basin rivers, including Briansk Vodokanal 26.6%, Kursk Vodokanal 13.3% and Smolensk Gorvodokanal 8.2%.
By total iron (MAC = 0.5 mg/l), exceeded MAC is recorded for Viazma Vodokanal 0.69 mg/l and Smolensk Gorvodokanal 0.67 mg/l. The mass of total iron discharged into the water bodies from the 14 Hot Spots under consideration is 64.1% of the total discharge into the Dnipro Basin rivers, including Smolensk Gorvodokanal 29.5%, Briansk Vodokanal 15.3% and Kursk Vodokanal 6.0%.
By concentration of copper (MAC = 0.001 mg/l), lead is for Dorogobuzh (mineral fertilizers) 0.03 mg/l and Novozybkov Inter-district engineering services 0.02 mg/l. By the EU standards (0.05 mg/l), the MAC for copper is not exceeded in any Hot Spot. The mass of copper discharged into the water bodies from the 14 Hot Spots under consideration is 81.5% of the total discharged into the Dnipro Basin rivers, including Smolensk Gorvodokanal 41.2%, Dorogobuzh (mineral fertilizers) 10.9%, Kursk Vodokanal 9.2%, Novozybkov Inter-district engineering services 5.9% and Briansk Vodokanal 5.0%.
The main indicator, used to monitor water quality in the Russian Federation, is the maximum admissible concentrations of pollutants (MAC). In many cases, objective reasons (technologicaldeficiencies) do not allow the enterprise to comply with the MAC. To ensure a certain water quality standard at the site of water use or water consumption, each enterprise is assigned a maximum admissible discharge (MAD). MAD represents the mass of pollutant in the wastewater, which is the maximum admissible for collection with respect to the established regime in the given location of the water body within the unit of time. The assignment of MAD takes into account the MAC of pollutants at water use points, the assimilating capacity of the water body and the best distribution of the mass of the discharged pollutants. If the enterprise does not comply with MAD, the state water control bodies assign it an interim agreed discharge of pollutants (IAD) for a short time, usually 1-3 years. If the quality of the discharged wastewater does not improve within this time, the enterprise is fined. The payment for excessive discharge of pollutants is increased 5-25 times.
Analysis of pollutants discharge by the Hot Spots indicates that for most parameters the actual discharge is below the established MADs and, for most indicators, it complies with the EU standards.
The economic assessment of the Hot Spots assumed that the direct impact on public health, recreational fishing, tourism, etc. cannot be measured.
The undertaken mitigation measures are considered beyond the connection with the gross national product of the state, production output for industry and agriculture and investment into fixed assets due to the insignificant level of these indicators in the Dnipro Basin as compared to the total Russian indicators. Thus, the specific weight of gross regional product of the Upper Dnipro oblasts in the total Russian indicators is as follows: gross regional product – 0.5% average; industrial output – 0.6%; agricultural output – 1.3%; and investment in fixed assets – 0.6%. By area, the oblasts within the Dnipro Basin are half of the total area of the Upper Dnipro oblasts. Therefore, all indicators are twice as low as noted. These indicators cannot be influenced not only by any one Hot Spot, but cannot be influenced by all of the Hot Spots in total. The selected Hot Spots cannot have any noticeable impact on the macroeconomic indicators of the oblasts.
The indicators achieved through the realization of the measures for each Hot Spot, cannot be compared in terms of their scope to the scope of the oblast indicators.
Therefore, direct impact on the demographic indicators (in other words, life interval, birth rate and migration rate) cannot be measured.
Additional expenditures connected with the dissemination of information among the population, education and social control of industrial pollution are not evaluated.
As a more detailed economic analysis is to be done during the subsequent phase, the developed assessment criteria will ensure directional data for the subsequent analysis will be obtained. The scoring sheet on the economic issues (Annex E) is designed to be used by the economic experts in order to determine the “intensifying” coefficient when applying the “Methodology of Assessment of Economic Efficiency of Water Protective Measures”.
The assessment of the economic damage caused by each Hot Spot, as well as development of specific measures on its mitigation, were complicated by the lack of a number of official data sets and objective comparable data of economic entities on specific indicators of production activity. This refers to perspectives on development, required investment, financing sources, pollution fees, treatment fees, etc. This necessitated, to compensate for missing data, using data from similar entities, professional judgment and the comparison of identical indicators for the enterprises.
The economic analysis and data quality control were carried out on the basis of information obtained from the questionnaires completed by representatives of enterprises from the Hot Spots and from the assessment carried out by the National Experts working within the framework of the UNDP-GEF Programme in those oblasts of the Russian Federation, where the preliminary selected Hot Spots are located.
