Environment – Water – Sustainable Development (MADED PN 2009-2015)

Home Environment – Water – Sustainable Development (MADED PN 2009-2015)
The National Institute for Research and Development in Environmental Protection – INCDPM Bucharest conducted during 2009-2015 the Environment, Water, Sustainable Development Nucleu Program, with acronym MADED and PN 09 06 code.

The initial development period consisted of three years, 2009-2012, being further extended until 2015. There were funded 31 research projects, structured on three objectives: Environment, Water and Sustainable Development. The 31 projects have been approached with great professionalism by the institute researchers, with diverse specialties: engineers, chemists, physicists, mathematicians, geographers, material science engineers, ecologists, biologists, etc., the young graduates being mentored by vast experience senior researchers. It is worth mentioning that the institute is equipped with high performance equipment, data processing and conversion modern equipment, monitoring stations, ultrasonic tags, multibeam bathymetric technology for sturgeon habitat monitoring, etc. The papers resulted from the 185 project phases focused, especially on the last three years, on issues related to mathematical modeling, hydraulics and the development of flood hazard and flood risk maps, use of modern GIS techniques, sturgeons tagging and monitoring on the Romanian Danube sector.

At the same time, the use of renewable sources of energy – green energy issue has been approached within the established Center of Excellence during an additional project phase in 2015. In order to support and develop the Center of Excellence for Green Energy, a special space was designed for the development of its specific activities, supported by the funds provided by the Nucleu Program for the additional phase of 2015.

The research themes approached during the previous project phases constituted the starting points for new proposals on the environment, green energy, water, sturgeons and bolstered the development of new research on the mentioned directions.

  • Project Coordinators

  • Period

    2009 – 2015

  • Financed via

    ANCS-DGP

Objectives
The MADED National Program general objective involves providing the technical and scientific support necessary for the environmental policy in our country, namely the protection of the environmental fields aiming to harmonize the socio-economic development with the requirements derived from the sustainable development principle.

Specific objectives

The specific objectives for the MADED Program are as follows:

1st Objective: Environmental Protection – ensuring a viable, perfectible integrated assessment tool for environment quality that is indispensable to decision-making process – on environmental policy level (identifying problems, establishing the field – proper legislative solutions as well as self-assessing the effectiveness of the measures taken – DPSIR approach) and on the environmental management level carried out by the competent authorities.

2nd Objective: Water Quality Protection – in a holistic vision, this objective addresses complex concerns at regional level and especially at national level regarding integrated water resources management (surface and groundwater). Both point and diffuse pollution sources are taken into account, their consideration approach being in line with the specific provisions of the Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC).

3rd Objective: Sustainable Development – the first two objectives outlined above lead directly to the need for technical and scientific substantiation of the general environmental policy and of the water quality protection policy in particular. Technological solutions, irrespective of the scope of their investigation area, along with viability, must be part of a sustainable economic parameter both in the short and medium term.

Results
In order to highlight the main results obtained under the Nucleu Program, the following representative projects are briefly presented:

PN 09060365 The research theme approached the development of numerical models (using Delft 3D and HEC-RAS) for the Epuraşu Danube branch that will be used as reference point for a subsequent hydraulic modeling process that will comprise the Danube River between Baziaş and Moldova Nouă; the sediment transport processes were estimated using maps and cross-sectional and longitudinal profiles.

PN 09060112.1 The use of numerical modeling in the testing of different scenarios with real applicability conditions in the Bala – Old Danube confluence area.

PN 09060245.2 Center for Excellence on Green / Renewable Energy with Integrated Installations.

PN 09060122 Following the research conducted in one of the 2015 project phases using the numerical modeling of the pollutants dispersion into the atmosphere, it arose the need to undertake measures for greening the entire study area; there have been proposed greening options of the areas related to the tailings ponds in Moldova Noua.

PN 09060238 and PN 09060239 approached in several project phases the development and improvement of the multi-parametric quality index of aquatic ecosystems algorithm and have highlighted the weight assignment method and the rate extraction approach for a predefined set of indicators set for evaluation. So far, this theme’s topic has been distributed in scientific environments by inclusion in doctoral studies, conferences participation and publication of articles in specialized journals.

PN 09060366 The project aimed to research wild sturgeons monitoring in Romania from a conserving species and habitats point of view. The work highlighted the breeding habitats monitoring by carrying out field measurements and water samples sampling, identification of possible influences of hydrological and hydro chemical factors on the reproductive behavior of sturgeons.

The research works carried out during 2009-2015 led to their capitalization by presenting the obtained results at conferences, symposiums, workshops (about 119 scientific events) out of which 30 ISI papers were published. Two patents have been certified and two specialized books have been published. Patent No. A / 00773/2012 DKTB ICHTYOFAUNA MONITORING STATION, ESPECIALLY STURGEONS, THROUGH REMOTE SENSING, WITH ULTRASONIC TAGS IN DIFFERENT HYDROLOGICAL CONDITIONS obtained the gold medal in Brussels, 2015.

Nucleu Program research results were submitted for their capitalization to the Ministry of Environment and Forests and the Ministry of Regional Development and Tourism, as well as to the private sector. It is noted that many of the research results were also presented at the international conferences organized by the Balkan Environment Association, BENA, where awards were given for the presented works.

As stated before, the research work has been carried out by young researchers with the permanent support of experienced management and researchers, reflecting the special attention given to the guidance and training of young researchers.