| Abstrakt: |
In the context of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) and a comprehensive water protection in Slovakia it is necessary to address the problems related to point pollution sources (so called environmental burdens). Since 2012, several projects related to monitoring of environmental burdens are carried out by the State Geological Institute of Dionýz Štúr (SGIDŠ). The aim of the projects is to design and implement the monitoring programme for 309 environmental burdens in Slovakia, to identify leakage of pollutants into the environment and their extent and to assess the trends in concentrations of pollutants. The activities carried out are in line with the standard procedures applied in the EU countries and in line with the WFD and its Daughter Directive on Groundwater Protection, which constitute the basic legal framework for the implementation of the geological task. Monitoring carried out by SGIDŠ consists of several activities: processing of archival documents and data, building of conceptual models, designing of a monitoring programme, implementation of monitoring (sampling, field measurements and laboratory works), evaluation of monitoring results. Within the projects, a huge amount of data on water and rock environment quality have been collected and analysed. Monitoring programmes are compiled separately for each site based on the hydrogeological conceptual models. Number of proposed monitoring sites has essentially depended on the spatial extent of contamination, the number of pollution releases, type and distribution of contaminants, complexity of the hydrogeological structure and groundwater flow, behaviour of pollutants in the environment, access, sensitivity of the receptor at risk and legislative requirements. Obtained data and monitoring results contribute to a comprehensive and systematic management and gradual removal of environmental burdens as well as reduction of risks to human health and environment. The main principles and methods of monitoring of environmental burdens are discussed in the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
