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Title: Water Quality Monitoring in the former Soviet Union and the Russian Federation: Assessment of Analytical Methods
Author(s): Alexander V. Zhulidov, Richard D. Robarts, Robert M. Holmes, Bruce J. Peterson, Juha Kämäri, Jarmo J. Meriläinen and John V. Headley
Annotation: Monitoring of surface water quality in the former Soviet Union (FSU) and the present-day Russian Federation historically held an important place in the hierarchy of science, legal framework and relations between agencies. Sadly, the gap between the intentions, qualification of managers and effective programmes has always been sizeable. Since disintegration of the FSU this gap has become a formidable barrier for collecting reliable monitoring information and producing effective water quality management decisions in the Russian Federation. Updating the federal system for freshwater quality monitoring in the Russian Federation is complicated by several unresolved problems. The principal issues are political, technical, institutional and financial. The existing Russian model of water chemistry data collection inherited from the FSU has proved unreliable, outdated and unrelated to modern national issues of water management. The quality of produced data is one of the greatest weaknesses of the federal monitoring system both in the Russian Federation and in other states of the FSU. A significant cause of the low reliability of the produced information is the analytical methods used in monitoring, their inappropriate use, non-compliance to laboratory practices when following expert recommendations, insufficient training level of managers and laboratory personnel and under-funding of the federal monitoring system. The growing national priorities in the field of surface water quality control and improvement conflict with the capacity of the Russian Federation to provide necessary information of guaranteed high quality. Here we make the first attempt to present a critical analysis of the analytical methods used to assess and control surface water quality, to show the main errors arising when applying the recommended analytical methods, and to assess the degree of reliability of produced monitoring information from 1977-1978 to the present. Our overall objective is to summarize the current situation in order to facilitate implementation of future improvements.
Bibliographical description: Edita Prima Ltd, Helsinki 2003
Publication's type: статья
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