Focus on groundwater pollution by priority industrial pollutants
FOKS deals with management of groundwater pollution by priority industrial pollutants. It is the general approach, to take up innovative tools and strategies developed by recent research and to transfer them to daily practice in groundwater risk management. This transfer will be done by
- modifications according to practical needs,
- test and demo applications according to emerging regulation and procedures on technology performance verification in the European Technology Action Plan (ETAP)
- embedding this technological options into a consistent strategic framework for implementation of the European Groundwater Directive GWD).
This strategy facilitates a fast implementation and optimal use of research results and it allows the water authorities to build their practical work on a sound scientific basis. The project team consists of research institutes and municipalities which were involved in recent research and water authorities ready to make use of these experience.
Work packages
The technical work of the project is structured in 3 work packages, which are
- development and demonstration of technical tools for site characterisation, investigation and risk assessment of key sources of pollution
- selection of mitigation options, pilot application and performance evaluation of remediation technologies
- establishment of a strategic framework for groundwater risk management inclusive decision support criteria.
Main activities
The activities start with an assessment of the existing knowledge base. Based on the state of the art innovative tools will be further developed and adjusted according to practical requirements defined by the practitioners from the water authorities involved. This leads to modified tools ready for practical use, which will then be tested and demonstrated under different boundary conditions. The procedure will be similar for the mitigation options and remediation technologies considered within FOKS.
Accordingly the strategic activities in risk management start with know-how exchange, followed by downscaling of GWD cornerstones to risk management of groundwater bodies at degraded areas and a review of current national practises of water authorities. Taking into account the potential of the innovative tools, harmonised administrative procedures and decision support models will be described, to be further applied by the project partnership and beyond.
Experience made through the pilots helps to finalise comprehensive recommendations for actions. Main mechanism of cooperation with a wider audience are public meetings & workshops, at which the project’s technical core team of researchers and locally acting municipal authorities including their related consultants exchange with both technical experts and regional and national authorities around the partnership.
Expected outputs
FOKS will finally produce
- a comprehensive toolbox for identification of key sources of groundwater contamination illustrating the application of a series of innovative technical tools, like:
- Integral groundwater investigation
- Isotopic fingerprinting
- Passive sampling
- Backtracking and contaminant transport modelling
- Gnostics and statistics
- Risk assessment and risk management
- a guidance document facilitating the implementation of innovative remediation technologies
- a decision support system embedded within a consistent administrative framework to support the work of public authorities in the field of groundwater risk management.
All partners involved will execute in their local pilot projects investigation, demonstration and remediation planning phase, In Poland and Czech Republic the pilot actions will go beyond and include also pilot investment phase, aiming at pilot-scale partial remediation of key sources of pollution.
