Description
The project will focus on evaluation of point and non-point sources of water pollution, especially nutrients, organics and pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) in the drinking water reservoir catchment. The project will assess cost effective land and agricultural management actions or measures and waste water treatment technologies, such as constructed wetlands. Results from monitoring will serve as a base for modelling approach within a catchment area. Water quality improvement options, which will be achieved in the proposed project, are lacking in the Czech Republic as well as in Norway, although they are of a crucial importance for achieving obligatory targets, set by Water Framework Directive. The project outcomes are necessary to create conceptual guidelines for soil and (waste)water management in drinking water reservoir catchment. The research will be run both in the Czech Republic and Norway to complement each other.
Summary of project results
The proposed project focused on tracing and balancing significant point and non-point sources of water pollution and its origins including evaluating the current/typical and alternative waste water treatment methods, aiming at minimizing surface and groundwater pollution. Special attention was paid to the evaluation of removal efficiency of constructed wetland for pharmaceuticals. The project assessed and suggested cost effective land and agricultural management actions or measures and waste water treatment technologies, including the use of constructed wetlands, to enhance landscape´s retaining water potential and to reduce input of pollutants into waters. Both for water quantity and quality, methods of continuous monitoring were employed in submerged hydrological and hydrogeological units of various scales (from tens of hectares to tens of km2). Results from monitoring provided the true pollutant loads from tile-drained land with different agricultural use and management and served as a base for modelling approach within the pilot catchments. Findings and water quality improvement options achieved in the project AQUARIUS are of a crucial importance for achieving obligatory targets, set by Water Framework Directive (WFD), Nitrate Directive and Groundwater Directive. The project outcomes are necessary for completing conceptual and expert documents and guidelines for soil and water conservative management and proper wastewater treatment in a catchment as well as for planning of land use within areas used as water supply sources.
Summary of bilateral results
Project partners were engaged in the project work according to the original project plan and all of them delivered quality results in a good team spirit. The responsibilities of the partners were divided based on their competences and research possibilities. Both the Czech partners and the Norwegian partner NIBIO participated in the project work and the delivery of outputs of all the WPs. The cooperation between the Czech team and their Norwegian colleagues considerably widened the research scope and the knowledge on similar issues at pilot sites both in the Czech Republic and Norway in determining the sources of contamination of surface and groundwater with nutrients and pharmaceuticals as well as in assessing the proportion of point and non-point sources of pollution in different hydrological situation in the catchment. An important contribution was the involvement of NIBIO into the socio-economic investigation and the preparation of a questionnaire survey. In the Czech Republic (CR), three types of experimental sites were selected, each of different extent and settings, representing the typical rural conditions of the Czech Republic. First, 2 small prevailingly agricultural catchments (with several subcatchments) within the largest Czech water supply reservoir basin Švihov on the Želivka river, which supplies with drinking water more than 1.5 Million people. Second, 4 constructed wetlands (CWs) of different parameters, located within above mentioned river basin, and third, a small village with WWTP including an infiltration system of pre-treated municipal waste water, coming also from a psychiatric hospital.