Project
Summary:
The project is funded within the Economic Competitiveness Operative Programme (GVOP) of the Hungarian Ministry of Economics and Transport and is co-financed by the EU within the European Plan.
Project coordination: Dr. Katalin Gruiz - Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Department of Agricultural Chemical Technology, Hungary.
The consortium includes the following Hungarian participants:
Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Department of Agricultural Chemical Technology (BME MGKT)
Soil and Agrochemical Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Science (MTA TAKI)Cyclolab Cyclodextrin Research and Development Ltd (CYCLOLAB)
Collaborator:Agency for Research Fund Management and Research Exploitation, Hungary (KPI)
The Project is focussed on development of innovative soil testing methods that support site-specific risk assessment of polluted sites.The main aim of the work is to develop physico-chemical analyses able to characterise the physico-chemical properties of the soil, biological (ecological, ecotoxicological) testing of soil, DNA soil testing procedures able to be used for measuring and forecasting the ecological effects of the contaminant on the soil and to determine the site-specific quantitative risk.The integrated use of the developed methods shall provide assistance in mapping of the polluted area, forecasting and measuring the ecological effect and site-specific risk of the contaminants, in acquiring more information on the pollution, bioavailability, mobility of the contaminant, bioaccumulation and food chain effects. Therefore, the developed integrated methodology and the related risk assessment procedure will support environmental decision making in environmental risk management. The risk will be estimated from the concentration and effect data resulted from the applied integrated methodology. For risk characterisation the comparison and parallel evaluation of physico-chemical and biological-ecotoxicological data are used.
The developed methods will be applied and verified on demonstration sites, taking into account the site-specific chemical properties of the contaminants, the biological characteristics of the site and the effects of the contaminants on the ecosystem.
The following environmental characteristics of the soil are being investigated:
Partition between soil phases of both inorganic and organic contaminants
Biodegradability and site specific biodegradation
Bioavailability
Toxicity, mutageniety
The following methods are being developed:
Rapid in situ measurement of environmental parameters
Physico-chemical rapid in situ measurement of contaminants and their effect
Gas chromatographic measurement of kow, kd and kp of organic pollutants
Kd of inorganic pollutants : measurement and modelling
Simulation of bioavailability with solvents and additives
Simulation of digestion with chemical/enzimatic treatments
Ecological assessment of soil microbes: diversity, biochemical diversity, DNA techniques
Ecotoxicity tests: direct contact and interactive tests, microcosm tests by microbial, plant and soil living animals (protozoa, worms, springtails)
Expected Results:
Three complementary test methods will be developed and implemented:
1.Physical-chemical methods for quantitative and qualitative determination and characterisation of toxic metals and organic contaminants, determination of partition and contaminant transport.
2.Biological and DNA techniques for Qualitative and Quantitative characterisation of the members of the ecosystem3.
3.Direct soil contact and DNA toxicological tests to measure the effect of the contaminated environmental samples.
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