Water quality
In response to pressure from citizens across the European community
demanding cleaner water, perhaps the most significant development
in water policy in our time has been created, the Water Framework
Directive (WFD).
The
requirements of the WFD have presented water and environmental
managers with significant challenges and the requirement for novel
technologies and methods to address these central challenges has
never been more necessary.
The directives key aims and goals include:
- To expand the scope of water protection to
all waters, surface waters and groundwater
- To achieve "good status" for all waters by
a set deadline
- To introduce water management based on
river basins (i.e. from catchment through river systems to the
sea)
- To adopt a "combined approach" of emission
limit values and quality standards
The directive also has the goal of achieving fair and equitable
pricing and of involving citizens more closely in the management
and decision making about water resources.
On the water supply side, the key to providing safe and
wholesome water and meeting stringent drinking water standards is a
combination of preventing contaminants entering the water cycle
with successful water treatment. As water treatment methods have
become more sophisticated, emphasis has shifted towards risk based
approaches combined with automated monitoring systems to deliver
reductions in costs and improvements in quality.
PML research which has potential application in these areas:
- Use of flow cytometry to characterise free
living microbial / planktonic communities and as a diagnostic
tool
- Development of virus diagnostic kits,
which are potentially applicable to viruses of concern especially
with regard to drinking water quality
- Monitoring ecological health of marine
coastal and freshwaters e.g. using Ecobox
- Characterisation of novel contaminants /
contaminant cocktails and investigation of their fate
An example of a recent project
Ribble Pilot
With the introduction of the European Commission’s Water Framework
Directive (WFD), the concept of general protection of the aquatic
ecology to a high level was introduced by the European Union. PML
Applications Ltd was funded by the Environment Agency and as part
of the WFD Common Implementation Strategy, to develop tools for
water quality risk assessment alongside more traditional measures
of water quality (chemical and biological) used by regulators.
PML Applications Ltd is working together with other
organizations on the Ribble Estuary (Lancashire, UK) to compare a
number of different techniques which might be used to monitor the
status of an estuary. Initial trials have shown that PML’s
bacterial assay of water quality (EcoBox) has the capacity to
profile water quality risk across the whole estuary and deliver
rapid results. The sensitivity of the technique is such that
features on the estuary, such as sluices and weirs associated with
sewage treatment works, the Douglas River and a landfill site,
could be distinguished easily.