engleski

Establishing of monitoring of river sediments in Croatia

Sediment is an essential, integral and dynamic part of our river basins and a healthy river needs sediment as a source of life. Unfortunately, the sediment also acts as a potential reservoir of long series of dangerous chemicals. Certain level of pollution leads to a negative impact on the level of biological diversity in rivers, what is now considered unacceptable by society and therefore it led to the development of the European Water Framework Directive (WFD). This Directive aims to achieve good status for all European waters by 2015, and it is clear that there is a direct relationship between sediment quality and achieving this objective of the WFD. Another important reason for the establishment of regular monitoring of sediments is that unlike water, which represents the current state of a particular watercourse, sediment represents a sort of record of the state of pollution in the long run. Therefore it is necessary, in addition to regular water monitoring, to establish also regular monitoring of sediments, in order to gain a real insight into the status of pollution of particular watercourses and to determine trends over a longer period of time. In the Republic of Croatia routine river sediment monitoring does not exist yet. First scientific investigations of river sediment geochemistry in Croatia started 1989 (Prohić and Juračić, 1989) in the Krka River estuary, while first systematic research of a river basin in Croatia was performed by Frančišković-Bilinski (2005) in Kupa River drainage basin. Up to now, several detailed studies of both toxic metals and organic pollutants have been conducted in this drainage basin and some other rivers, also Croatian scientists participated in river sediment research in other countries. In 2008 Croatian water authorities (Hrvatske Vode) started preliminary sediment monitoring program, what was successfully conducted. In the first year of preliminary program only 14 stations existed, while in 2014 number of stations increased to 21. Number of monitored watercourses and of analysed parameters also increased. Finally, Croatian water authorities (Hrvatske Vode) recently decided to establish permanent monitoring network of river sediments throughout the state. The goal is to set up about 80 stations, which will cover all most important and most contaminated watercourses in all parts of the country. A study, which will examine in detail the suitability of each of proposed locations as well as selection of parameters which will be monitored in sediments, is in progress. The network of sediment monitoring stations will besides new stations include also locations covered earlier by the preliminary program, to enable continuation of existing data series on those locations. Current plan for establishing of monitoring of river sediments in Croatia is presented and discussed in details.

river sediments; monitoring; Croatia; Water framework directive (WFD); network of monitoring stations

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