Environmentalists from St. Petersburg State University of Industrial Technologies and Design (Ƶ) and programmers from St. Petersburg State Electrotechnical University "LETI" (SPbSETU "LETI") have developed a geoinformation system "GIMS-Reka" to regulate industrial impact on the environment. It calculates permissible masses of pollutants discharged from enterprises into the river and forecasts negative consequences for the environment. Unlike its analogues, the prototype program allows monitoring pollution transfer and its impact on any section of the river system.
The service has two test versions: one for enterprises and one for authorities. The enterprise will be able to calculate its permissible mass of discharge, i.e. the amount of pollutants it can discharge into a water body per second and per year without harming the river ecosystem. If the permissible mass is exceeded, the enterprise must pay a fine.
Representatives of the authorities, who are engaged in supervision over water users and environmental monitoring, will have access to a test version of the program "GIMS-Reka" with extended functions. They will be able to calculate the permissible mass of discharge from all enterprises that are located within the river system. This will make it possible to build a unified algorithm of ecological and technological optimization of the load of industrial enterprises on water bodies.
"We, as ecologists, have prepared a solution of the mathematical model for calculating the permissible norm of pollutant discharge into water bodies from an enterprise. It takes into account many parameters that relate to both the condition of the water body and the discharge from production. Among the most important parameters are, for example, the river's flow velocity, length, width and meandering. The type of outfall is also important, whether it is coastal or in-channel, i.e. where exactly and how pollutants are discharged. All of this affects how the pollutant will behave in the water. For example, a fast flow and release of substances into the channel using a dispersing method will best dilute the pollution," comments Ivan Antonov, Associate Professor of the Department of Environmental Protection and Rational Use of Natural Resources at Ƶ. According to Natalia Kurakina, Associate Professor of the Department of Information-Measuring Systems and Technologies of SPbSETU "LETI", the solution of the mathematical model developed by the scientists of Ƶ was the basis for the software "GIMS-Reka", which was created by the scientists of LETI.
This system allows to automatically calculate the concentration of pollutants at any point of the river system and to show, for example, how pollution develops or where the most polluted section of the river system is located. And with the appropriate pollution data, the developed software can be used to monitor any medium-sized rivers in the Northwest and nearby businesses that may affect their ecological condition.
"The main advantage of our prototype is the ability to calculate the concentration of pollutants at any point in the river system, including its tributaries. Analogs do not take this into account, providing data only for the discharge point. In addition, our system allows importing data into another geoinformation program to visualize pollution on a map. Such a map clearly shows how pollution is transported and where the most polluted section of the river system is located. This will make it possible to balance the volume of discharges from different enterprises, to prevent emergencies, to plan sites for the construction of new industrial facilities, and to plan hydraulic works without harming aquatic bioresources," says Andrei Epifanov, Associate Professor of the Department of Environmental Protection and Rational Use of Natural Resources at Ƶ.
