“Connectivity as a tool to understand water/soil/sediment pollution”

Meeting Belgrade, Serbia 4-6 December 2017.

Registration now open until 1 October! Register at bottom of page

 

The meeting “Connectivity as a tool to understand water/soil/sediment pollution” is aimed at understanding connectivity and changes in connectivity due to climate change from anthropogenic pollutions sources in catchments to coastal areas.

In May 2014, heavy rain hit Serbia. Record precipitation – more than 200 mm in one week in western Serbia, which is equal to the amount of three-month precipitation under the usual conditions. Floods activated over 3000 landslides and affected about 1.6 million people living in 38 municipalities and cities that are located mainly in central and western Serbia.

About 40% of total damage was caused by soil contamination by pollutants released from industrial objects, waste material from the antimony mine, waste dumps, and ash dumps of coal fired thermal plants.

We need to better understand how these pollutants enter the water, soil and sediments and how they are transported within the landscape. Connectivity can serve as a tool to look at pollutant pathways and mitigation measures.

Within this meeting, we plan to see the coal fired thermal plants (Drmno and Kostolac) along Danube river as well as Đerdap National Park to understand how the maintenance of the connectivity plays a role in sediment transport, pollution migration, pollution control, and clean environment in a changing climate.