The West University of Timișoara, as LEADER, in partnership with the Institute of Mining and Metallurgy in Bor (Serbia) and with GEC NERA, Caraș-Severin Branch, completed the project RoRS 337 Romania Serbia NETwork for assessing and disseminating the impact of copper mining activities on water quality in the transboundary area (RoS-NET2) with the implementation period 10.09.2019 – 09.09.2021 and with a total value of 999 Eur, of which 894 Eur represents the non-refundable financial assistance.
The general objective of the project was to assess the water quality in the areas of transboundary mining operations, propose remedial methods and promote education in the field of environmental protection.
By implementing this project, we exploited the results of the previous Romania-Serbia collaboration project (Cross-border network for advanced training and research in environmental protection, Code 464) which led to the identification of the nature of the pollution due to copper mining operations, because we carried out the physico-chemical and toxicological characterization of water flows, remedial solutions were proposed, we carried out training sessions for young people in the field of horizontal themes and indicators of environment and informed the general public, NGOs, organizations and public authorities about the existing situation, the need and ways to solve the identified problem.
The main results obtained through the implementation of this project are: (i) informing and educating 697 young people, 154 participants in capacity building initiatives and the general public regarding environmental issues specific to areas where mining operations are carried out by involving them in campaigns awareness, training sessions and events; (ii) the purchase of 3 new research tools that are used in the field of cross-border services for environmental protection; (iii) the development of a knowledge base that is accessible on the project web page and that contains information on mining activities and the environmental problems created by them, the physico-chemical and toxicological characterization of water flows from the investigated areas and remedial solutions and which is used as a monitoring system in the field of environmental protection in the cross-border area; (iv) dissemination of project results by communicating them in 10 national conferences and 12 international conferences, publishing 8 scientific articles in specialized magazines and synthesizing all results in 2 scientific studies and in an environmental report that expose the situation of water flows and remedial procedures, these are also publicly available on the project webpage and have been sent to researchers, NGOs, local/regional/national authorities and organizations working in the field of environmental protection.
We believe that one of the important results of the project is the voluntary involvement of 94 students who participated in various project activities and thus had the opportunity to train skills to make measurements necessary for water, sediment and soil quality monitoring, to interpret these measurements, to implement training sessions for students in order to promote and facilitate their understanding of the concepts that are debated within the horizontal themes and environmental indicators, thus contributing to the education of future generations in the spirit of non-discrimination, social inclusion and protection the environment.
The project was completed in a festive way with a Final Gala with 129 participants (members of the project partners' teams, teachers, researchers, students) and during which the results of scientific research in the field of environmental protection and environmental remediation were communicated polluted (18 oral communications and 29 posters).
More information about the activities implemented within this project can be found on its web page, http://www.elearning-chemistry.ro/rosnet2/.
