Joint Operational Programme

BLACK SEA BASIN 2014-2020

BS963-Protect-Streams-4-Sea

 

 

“Protecting streams for a clean Black Sea by reducing sediment and litter pollution with joint innovative monitoring and control tools and nature-based practices”

The project is financed by the European Union through European Neighborhood Instrument (ENI) - Cross-border cooperation (CBC) - in the frame of the Joint Operational Programme BLACK SEA BASIN 2014-2020, Priority 2. Promote coordination of environmental protection and joint reduction of marine litter in the Black Sea Basin. Specific Objective 2.1 Improve joint environmental monitoring, and has an implementation period of 24 months (20.07.2020-19.07.2022).

 

“Protect-Streams-4-Sea” WORK PACKAGES

WP M - Management

WP T1 - Identifying Hot Spots and Quantifying Erosion, Litter and Pollutant Sources

WP T2 - Monitoring and Mitigating Stream Pollutants and Litter

WP C – Communication

 

OVERALL OBJECTIVE

Living along a common Sea, means that common methods and practices need to be adopted by the surrounding countries.

The overall objective is the environmental protection and reduction of pollutants and litter in Black Sea.

  • This will be done by focusing on the inland pollutants and litter, specifically from the rivers and their watersheds that end in the Black Sea.
  • To achieve the above, a joint monitoring program on these pollutants and litter will be established to promote the coordination of environmental protection and joint reduction of pollutants and litter through the adoption of best management practices.
  • This will help lead to sustainable growth and improve the welfare of the people of the region.

 

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES

SP1. New tools for Joint Monitoring - Develop new tools based on state-of-the-art technology in order to monitor pollution jointly in the region. If the monitoring efforts are not jointly conducted, they will not be successful in mitigating pollutants and litter. The application of these tools should reinforce the joint and compatible cross-border monitoring, evaluation and information systems, tools and capacity to prevent and control transboundary pollution and will also include small-scale infrastructure works.

SP2. Identification of Major Sources of Pollutants and Litter and their Contributions - Have a better understanding of the important sources of non-point source pollutants and litter from the surrounding watershed to the Black Sea and develop a database with these sources. At the same time, improve the availability and cross-border interoperability of updated online public access data and data products (e.g. maps) for the Black Sea so industry, public authorities, NGOs and researchers may make more effective use of them.

SP3. Recommend Best Management Practices - Develop and suggest best management practices (primarily nature-based solutions) for the Black Sea region in order to reduce nonpoint source pollutants and litter from watersheds reaching the sea. In addition, the effectiveness of these practices will require regional cooperation and improved cooperation on environmental monitoring between public authorities, NGOs and stakeholders involved in disaster prevention (water quality, floods and soil erosion) and management will be achieved.

 

“Protect-Streams-4-Sea” SUMMARY

The Protect-Streams-4-Sea project focuses on a joint environmental monitoring of nonpoint source pollutants and litter that end up in the Black Sea. This is a main priority of the Black Sea Programme and essential, because once the enclosed Black Sea is polluted, it is very difficult to depollute. Most cleaning efforts focus on the sea itself or along the coastal areas. The watersheds that end in the Black Sea have not been focal points, despite providing many of the pollutants and litter. A similar example is the Mississippi Basin that transports the pollutants that have created the dead zone in the Mexico Gulf. The idea of this project is to stop the non-point source pollutants and litter from reaching the streams and rivers and consequently not reaching the Black Sea. If successful, this can cost-effectively maintain a clean Black Sea that will benefit the welfare of the entire region. This will be achieved by using innovative methods (fingerprinting) to correlate landscape position with the pollutants in the stream water and bed. Soil samples will be taken along stream banks, soil surfaces and in-stream. This way the origins and the contributions of sediment and other non-point source pollutants to the stream water and bed will be estimated. The origins could be the stream banks (e.g. steep, non-vegetated, etc.) or soil surface with different land covers (e.g. burnt areas, flooded areas, forests, degraded or specific crops). In addition, traditional (erosion pins, runoff plots) and new innovative (remote sensing, indices and drones) methods will be used for the pollutant estimations. Hydrologic models will be applied to simulate the pollutants at the watershed scale based on the project data from the fingerprinting method and the stream bank and bed and soil surface plots. A Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis and a Decision Support System will be developed to find the “hot spots” and recommend best management practices in each pilot area. Hot spots are the areas that contribute most pollutants and/or litter. The recommended practices will be nature-based and applicable to the entire region. The final part will develop and/or test innovative tools/machines: 4 litter traps (in Armenia, Greece, Moldova and Turkey) and 1 skimmer vessel (in Romania) in the pilot area water bodies to collect litter and other pollutants. The pilot areas will be in five different Black Sea countries allowing to test the tools and methods in different environments representative of the region. This should help the tools and methods adoption by all Black Sea countries and lead to a joint monitoring program for inland nonpoint source pollutants and litter. With Universities, NGOs and public authorities partnering on this project the methods and tools developed will be science-based and practical. Finally, numerous and diverse communication activities will help reach all target groups and lead to the adoption of these joint monitoring methods and tools in the region.