The results of a transboundary project to monitor the Black Sea river ecosystems, in particular of the Prut and the Nistru, will be presented to decision makers for these to take them into account when modifying the national regulations concerning the monitoring of ecosystems. The project called HydroEcoNex was launched and will last for 30 months, project manager Elena Zubkov, corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of Moldova, the Institute of Zoology, announced in a news conference at IPN.
According to Elena Zubkov, new indicators for monitoring ecosystems will be designed because the national regulations for monitoring ecosystems need to be modified. “We want to assess the socioeconomic losses we already sustain in the case of ecosystems and to make a forecast of the future losses. How will we be affected if the ecosystem of the Nistru or that of the Prut will be lost? For the first time, effort will be made to work out an assessment strategy and the document will be submitted to decision makers,” stated the expert.
The results of the project will be made available to the community throughout the project implementation period. These will be published on an online platform that will be launched soon. “We want to share our knowledge by these documents. As researches, we can contribute only this way,” noted Elena Zubkov.
The HydroEcoNex project “Creating a system of innovative transboundary monitoring of the transformations of the Black Sea river ecosystems under the impact of hydropower development and climate change” will be implemented by the Institute of Zoology in partnership with the Eco-Tiras International Association of River Keepers, the Lower Danube University of Galați, the Ukrainian Scientific Center of Ecology of the Sea and the Hydrometeorological Center of the Black and Azov Seas.
Emphasis within the project will be placed on the designing of a new system of indicators for assessing the transformations of transboundary aquatic ecosystems affected by hydropower constructions and climate change. As part of the same project, there will be staged expeditions, laboratory simulations, training seminars, summer schools and workshops. The project is financed by the European Union through the European Neighborhood Instrument ,within the Joint Operational Program “Black Sea Basin 2014-2020”, and has a total budget of about €900,000.
Besides project manager Elena Zubkov, of the Institute of Zoology, the news conference involved all the partner project coordinators: “Eco-TIRAS” executive director Ilia Trombitski; Doctor Habilitate of Physical Engineering Antoaneta Ene, of the Lower Danube University of Galați; Doctor Svetlana Kovalisina, of the Ukrainian Scientific Center of Ecology of the Sea, and Doctor Alexandr Matyghin, of the Odessa-based Hydrometeorological Center of the Black and Azov Seas.
