It says on the water: "ecopolice" will help to collect data on illegal discharges

Russian scientists have developed an "ecological policeman", a device that helps restore the history of water pollution and conduct long—term covert monitoring of industrial discharges. It can be used to determine which substances got into the water and when it happened. The methodology is planned to be tested on real objects. In the future, it can be used to collect evidence of violations, including in court. However, before implementation, the equipment and technology must be checked with the participation of specialists and the scientific community, as well as certified, experts noted.

How the device "remembers" water pollution

The staff of the Vernadsky Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Water Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Faculty of Physics of Lomonosov Moscow State University have developed the technology of "ecological policing". It allows you to track and restore the history of wastewater pollution in reservoirs. After the calibration of the methodology, the data obtained can be used in court to prove violations of environmental legislation.

The development is based on a chromatographic column, a tube filled with a special sorbent. According to scientists, the device acts as a kind of "memory" mechanism.

When water passes through the column, pollutants accumulate in the sorbent layers. By their distribution, it is possible to determine which compounds were present in the stream and when they entered the water. To accurately calculate these parameters, researchers have developed special mathematical methods.

— Concentration profiles are formed in the column. They can be used to "read" the history of which substances entered the water, in what sequence and in what concentrations. However, reconstructing the history of events from them is a complex mathematical task, so high—precision data processing methods are needed," Ruslan Khamizov, one of the authors of the development, Director of GEOHI RAS, told Izvestia.

They gave us a wave: satellites taught us how to find "invisible" plastic in the ocean

The new method will help combat water pollution and explore new ecosystems.

According to him, we are talking about so-called incorrect tasks, in which even small errors in the initial data can lead to significant errors in the results. To solve this problem, Russian scientists have developed and improved the regularization method. It allows you to obtain stable and verifiable results even if there are inaccuracies in the initial measurements. Specialists from the MSU Faculty of Physics have developed this approach and created a tool that allows you to objectively determine when and in what amount harmful substances entered the water.

As Ruslan Khamizov explained, during the research, the developers conducted a series of experiments. For two weeks, a model stream, similar in composition to the water in the Moskva River, was passed through a hose with a chromatographic column. Periodically, a solution with a high content of copper and nickel was added to the system, thus simulating multiple discharges of pollutants from industrial plants. Tests have confirmed the operability of the method.

— In the future, testing and calibration of equipment will require technology verification at real enterprises and expertise from the scientific community. This will build trust in the methodology. Then it can be used, for example, in court proceedings as evidence of the facts of harmful substances entering the water," Ruslan Khamizov noted.

The speaker can work as a storage device for a long time — up to a hundred years, if properly configured and protected from damage, he added. Ideally, the system can be used in collaboration with enterprises. This will make it possible to confirm the compliance of wastewater with environmental requirements and demonstrate the responsible attitude of industrialists to environmental protection.

Horses and people mixed up: who is polluting Lake Baikal

The water of the largest lake is spoiled by unaccounted-for drains from cesspools and farms

Where do fines for illegal discharges of dirty water go?

— There are cases when enterprises underestimate emissions data for various reasons. Emergency discharges are also possible. Therefore, the proposed method can become an important independent tool for environmental control. The data obtained will allow environmental organizations to influence enterprises that have committed discharges, and thereby prevent such violations in the future," commented Sergey Shchelochek, project manager of the Green Patrol environmental NGO.

The introduction of such monitoring on a voluntary basis will help enterprises improve their image and potentially reduce the frequency of inspections by supervisory authorities. This will also reduce the cost of preparing reports and eliminating identified violations, which often requires significant human and material resources.

— In Russia, wastewater quality is monitored in all regions. In case of non-compliance with the norms, the perpetrators are fined, which are used to maintain infrastructure and improve the environmental situation. Sometimes there may be a question of closing an enterprise," said Sergey Andreev, a leading researcher at the Penza State University Research Institute of Fundamental and Applied Research.

Photo: IZVESTIA/Eduard Kornienko

In most cases, companies tend not to violate the law and can become allies of scientists, he added. At the same time, in order for the technology to work, support is needed from the authorities of the territories where enterprises that carry out discharges operate. The introduction of experimental legal regimes aimed at strengthening industrial pollution control will accelerate the implementation of the method.

— The application of the development will require overcoming several barriers. In order for the ecopolice data to have evidentiary value in court, the device must be certified as a measuring instrument, and the methodology must be included in the Rosprirodnadzor register. Nowadays, even standard automatic discharge control systems do not always have a clear arbitration value and cannot replace traditional laboratory tests. In addition, the cost of equipment and its maintenance, as well as a shortage of qualified personnel, may hinder the introduction of technology," said Vladimir Pinaev, associate professor at the RUDN University Institute of Ecology, member of the Public Council of the Basic Organization of the CIS Member States for Environmental Education, editor—in—chief of the Resources magazine.

In his opinion, in order to overcome these limitations, it is necessary to go from a pilot test of the method on real objects and its inclusion in the regulatory field (for example, in the list of methods of the automatic discharge control system) to the creation of a standard software and hardware complex.