Water: quality and security
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CORDIScovery podcast- Episode #24 - Water: quality and supply
This is an AI transcription.
00:00:10:05 - 00:00:16:04
Abigail Acton
This is CORDIScovery.
00:00:16:06 - 00:00:44:05
Abigail Acton
Hello and welcome to this episode of CORDIScovery with me, Abigail Acton. As the 22nd of March at the United Nations World Water Day. This episode of CORDIScovery is on water, its quality and security of supply. We will travel to the high Himalayas and delve into the secret lives of freshwater snails. What can new technology tell us about the impact of climate change on the water cycle of the Himalayas, and what are the impacts throughout the vast areas that depend on the runoff?
00:00:44:07 - 00:01:04:06
Abigail Acton
What can you approaches in arable farming in China teach us, and how do we make agriculture climate smart? Is precision farming the key? And if so, how can we make that work? There are more of us living in cities and greater demand is being placed on water supplies. A fast, accurate and simple way to check levels of pollution in wastewater is to be welcomed.
00:01:04:08 - 00:01:31:16
Abigail Acton
Echo Toxicology is a fast growing field, so what can freshwater snails, leeches and shrimp tell us about the levels of micro pollutants in water? I'm delighted to say that we have some answers. These Welcome to my three guests whose work has been supported by the EU's Horizon 2020 program. Walter Immerzeel is professor of Mountain Hydrology at the University of Utrecht, where he is leading various projects at the cutting edge of climate change, glaciology and hydrology.
00:01:31:18 - 00:01:39:08
Abigail Acton
He is particularly interested in the interaction between the topography of the Himalayas and its impact on the water cycle. Hi, Walter.
00:01:39:10 - 00:01:40:05
Walter Immerzeel
Hi.
00:01:40:07 - 00:02:05:22
Abigail Acton
Research scientist at the Institute for Sustainable Agriculture at the Spanish Council for Scientific Research. Jose Gomez combines a background in agronomy and soil science. He is particularly interested in bridging the gap between research and the practical use of innovations in farming. Welcome. Jose. Didier Neuzeret is the CEO of Viewpoint, a French company that has been involved in environmental research and animal behavior analysis for 30 years.
00:02:05:24 - 00:02:13:08
Abigail Acton
He is interested in video tracking the behaviors of certain invertebrates known as bio monitoring to check pollution levels in wastewater.
00:02:13:10 - 00:02:15:11
Didier Neuzeret
Hi. I'm very pleased to be with you today.
00:02:15:11 - 00:02:29:12
Abigail Acton
And we're happy to have you. Walter, I'm going to turn to you. You've been researching the hydrology of the Himalayas since 2002. What features make this area of such interest to you and what is your project CAT setting out to do?
00:02:29:14 - 00:02:51:04
Walter Immerzeel
Yeah, thanks. It's very good question. No Himalayas. Many people think of the Himalaya as being just one mountain range in Asia, but in fact the region is very diverse, so it goes from almost the wettest place on earth on the south Side of the Himalaya to the dry mountain deserts of the Tibetan Plateau. We have the largest amount of glaciers in this region.
00:02:51:06 - 00:03:07:04
Walter Immerzeel
So also, you know, the way the atmosphere interacts with the glaciers and the water cycle is highly diverse. So that's what we try to do and get to to kind of unravel the water cycle, to see what the climate change impacts are and to detect how the regional differences are.
00:03:07:06 - 00:03:16:15
Abigail Acton
Right. Okay. And what initially attracted you to this area because it's your in your involvement with the Himalayas that's been going on for quite a long time. How did that start?
00:03:16:17 - 00:03:35:22
Walter Immerzeel
Yeah, no, I get this question quite often. I mean, I'm a guy from the from the lowest country in the world, which is completely flat and generally below the sea level. So why are you going to the Himalaya. It's a bit of a coincidence. So I went there with my wife on a honeymoon for six months. We hiked all the, the, all the tracks in Himalaya.
00:03:35:22 - 00:03:48:14
Walter Immerzeel
We were completely amazed by the landscape and then the birth of job came along and from one thing came another. And yeah, I ended up researching glaciers and mountains and mountain water for at least a decade already.
00:03:48:17 - 00:04:03:09
Abigail Acton
Fantastic. Absolutely. That's. That's great. I love it when people have personal connections with the subjects that really excite them. So tell me more about the work that you've been doing under the CAT project. How did you do your analysis and what did you find? And I guess also perhaps what were you looking for?
00:04:03:11 - 00:04:22:21
Walter Immerzeel
Yeah, while we were looking, I mean, we were dealing a lot with the issue of scale when we started out. The amount of scientific studies is quite limited there, and if they were there, they were focused on single glaciers and I was always amazed it's not about single glaciers. So if you look at the greater scheme of things, the glaciers may play only a limited role.
00:04:22:21 - 00:04:45:06
Walter Immerzeel
So I wanted to understand the entire water cycle. So how how does it work in the, let's say, the water cycle at high altitude? So there are other processes which are important. So there is snow melt, there is snow sublimation. There's of course, the glaciers, there are extreme gradients in rain and snowfall. So I try to to take a holistic view on that on the high altitude water cycle.
00:04:45:06 - 00:04:58:09
Walter Immerzeel
And that is just what we focused on. And we started at a very small scale, but we also zoomed out to look at the entire river basins and also look at the lake. How important is that water that comes from the mountains for the downstream regions?
00:04:58:11 - 00:05:11:00
Abigail Acton
Okay. You say you started at a small scale and then you zoomed out to look at the whole kind of river basins and the and the run off area. When you say you started at small scale, So tell me a little bit more about sort of what you were actually looking at.
00:05:11:02 - 00:05:32:24
Walter Immerzeel
No, we pinpointed a number of key processes. An example is, for example, many glaciers in the Himalayas are covered by debris. So there's a there's this big layer of debris which comes from erosion from the heart walls. And if there's a thick layer of debris that basically protects the ice from melt. But if it's a thin layer, it means it darkens the surface and it accelerates and melts.
00:05:32:24 - 00:05:52:20
Walter Immerzeel
You can compare it with wearing a black t shirt in summer, you feel warmer. So it's the same process. But still, we found that those debris covered glacier clogs there melt as fast as their they're clean ice twins. So we used drones and we met those glacier surfaces with very high level of detail. And we repeated that every half a year.
00:05:52:22 - 00:06:13:24
Walter Immerzeel
Then when you look at the change, you can very accurately where that melt is occurring. So we found, for example, that you have all kinds of faults on the glacier surfaces and ice cliffs, and these kind of features are sort of the catalysts of melt of this type of glacier. So that was quite new because you said like images, you can't see that because they they don't have enough detail.
00:06:13:24 - 00:06:15:02
Walter Immerzeel
So that's one example.
00:06:15:02 - 00:06:22:09
Abigail Acton
To greater resolution, as it were. And what sort of equipment did you use? You mentioned you use drones. What other kind of technology did you use?
00:06:22:14 - 00:06:44:20
Walter Immerzeel
Yeah, we use a lot of weather stations, all kinds of weather stations. So we were, I think one of the first groups who really measured snowfall and rainfall between 5006 thousand meters of altitude. So, yeah, those are extreme conditions. So you also need very rugged equipments that can last for a long time. We also faced, to be honest, a lot of problems.
00:06:44:22 - 00:07:00:06
Walter Immerzeel
So with the power supply, if is -20, the batteries, they don't like that very much and there's avalanches that have destroyed weather stations. So but overall, after after five years, we ended up with quite some interesting findings and really cool data.
00:07:00:08 - 00:07:16:19
Abigail Acton
Yeah, that sounds absolutely fascinating and not your sort of run of the mill problems facing people normally who are trying to observe topography like this. Yeah, very interesting. Thank you. And can you tell us a bit more about why it matters? And I'm interested in knowing a little bit more about what your findings have disproved.
00:07:16:24 - 00:07:40:09
Walter Immerzeel
Yeah. Okay. If you I think it's quite obvious if you add up all the people who live in the river basins which surrounds High Mountain Asia and Himalayas, Karakoram, Tibetan Plateau, then it's about 25% of the global population. So any change happening to the hydrology of the region has potentially a very large impact. And about two decades ago that was the IPCC report was published.
00:07:40:09 - 00:08:05:08
Walter Immerzeel
And one of the big messages there was the glaciers in Himalaya will disappear and Asia has rivers will most likely run dry. But what we showed is that it's actually the opposite. The glaciers will be there for quite a long time. They melt faster and that glacial melt will only decline towards the end of the century. And at the same time, most of the climate models, they predict an increase in precipitation because the hydrological cycle accelerates.
00:08:05:10 - 00:08:16:14
Walter Immerzeel
So overall, what we predict with our models is an increase in water availability. So it's not shortage of water we have to worry about, but it's basically excess of water in extreme precipitation.
00:08:16:14 - 00:08:18:06
Abigail Acton
Causing flooding downstream. You mean, for example flooding?
00:08:19:05 - 00:08:43:23
Walter Immerzeel
Exactly. Yeah. And the glaciers are retreating. And what remains is, you know, rocky areas and rocky surfaces. So all the rain that falls immediately ends up in the river. So the river flow becomes much more unpredictable. So that is one that's the main challenge to deal with. And you see that every year. The big, big disasters are happening due to extreme rainfalls, due to avalanches, due to landslides, and it's all triggered by extreme rainfall.
00:08:44:00 - 00:08:54:12
Abigail Acton
Right. Okay. That's interesting. And as you said, the retreating glaciers. Excellent. Thank you very much for telling us about that super can can I see if anybody would like to ask anything or anyone has any observations? Yeah. Didier?
00:08:54:15 - 00:09:19:01
Didier Neuzeret
I am interested in knowing you though. I will tell you about micro pollutants later on, but I'm wondering if you have had the opportunity to know what is the composition of the ice in the mountain or if the rain over there is containing micro pollutants. Because in Europe, for example, this is the case or is it the case over there?
00:09:19:03 - 00:09:40:17
Walter Immerzeel
Yeah, this is a very good question. No, I've never really focused on on water quality. The most thing that we have been doing is we did Geochemical analysis and isotope analysis to detect what is actually the source of water. But really looking at pollutants, we've not done that. I know that even I think at six or 7000 meters they have detected microplastics also in in the ice.
00:09:40:17 - 00:09:44:20
Walter Immerzeel
But yeah, I'm interested in it, but I've never really researched it myself.
00:09:44:22 - 00:09:46:11
Abigail Acton
Sounds like the next phase for another project.
00:09:46:11 - 00:09:50:10
Walter Immerzeel
Yeah, I actually. Good idea. Maybe we can do something together, see.
00:09:50:10 - 00:09:54:07
Abigail Acton
What's actually going on there. Yeah. Yeah. And the other questions or observations, Jose.
00:09:54:09 - 00:10:22:01
Jose Gomez
I mean, it's really interesting what you said about better model predictions, predict and increasing precipitation in your area. And it's something that best met ICRC in the Mediterranean because so Gottemoeller predicts more precipitation. But we see that we observed on a slight decline and they wonder, are you setting experimental reports to reduce uncertainty in the predictions or you know what I mean?
00:10:22:01 - 00:10:44:09
Walter Immerzeel
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. The climate models, as you know, are are very uncertain. So one model predicts an increase of 10%, the next one predicts a decrease of 10%. So yeah, we started with this whole monitoring of high altitude rain and snowfall. Yeah, we only started like six or seven years ago. So it's it's too early to detect any trends, but you keep coming down.
00:10:44:10 - 00:10:53:19
Walter Immerzeel
Yeah, we keep going. We try to add funding, find new projects to to make that record as long as possible because it's essential to to validate those super on certain models.
00:10:53:24 - 00:11:15:21
Abigail Acton
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you very much, Jose. I am actually going to turn to you because in a way, you're sort of covering part of the same terrain as Walter here. The SHui project is working to improve how we deal with water scarcity in European and Chinese cropping systems. And it's looking at how precision farming can help. What's holding us back when it comes to a more sustainable use of water and protecting soil health.
00:11:15:21 - 00:11:50:02
Jose Gomez
Okay, well, there are like like two blocks. One is technology and we still have part of it. Well, even inside our county, where all that technology that we have for precision farming and particularly for precision irrigation is not already in place. So that is just go there. That's a piece. But the second piece that is very clear about the policy of the rights of their water rights and how water is allocated as a society is and is the other pillar.
00:11:50:04 - 00:11:52:15
Jose Gomez
So we need to work in both.
00:11:52:17 - 00:12:04:06
Abigail Acton
Right. Okay. And you tell me a little bit more about the SHui project itself because you're bringing together organizations in Europe and in China. Tell me a little bit more about how that is working.
00:12:04:12 - 00:12:26:21
Jose Gomez
Well, it is basically a study like a group of friends. Basically, we are scientists in Europe, but we we need to be honest. We are a group of scientists. We like to work for long term experiments in relating agricultural runoff and water use. And we saw an opportunity to learn with Chinese colleagues, right. So that is basically how it started.
00:12:26:23 - 00:12:41:03
Jose Gomez
How has been the handling with COVID 19 restrictions for travel? Well, we can say we have got big success. We keep it running until the air bug one, we stop becoming personal interaction. We really suffer from them.
00:12:41:04 - 00:12:52:04
Abigail Acton
Yeah, that's impacted on us all. But I suppose particularly if you're working in close collaboration, obviously. Indeed, and maybe cross-culturally as well, it maybe is easier directly than, than via Zoom and things like that.
00:12:52:08 - 00:13:07:14
Jose Gomez
Yeah, Yeah. We do need time. I mean even within the same culture, you need time in science to develop trust. And we were working also with farmers and stakeholders so that that's the piece of the project that we didn't completely as good as we could.
00:13:07:15 - 00:13:30:05
Abigail Acton
Yeah, well that, that's for next time. So can I ask you a little bit more about your feeling about knowledge silos? Because I know one of the things that SHui as a project really wanted to do was to spread data so that it became accessible to different groups. And I think I know that the preoccupation of of the idea of knowledge sort of in pockets and not actually being accessible was something the project tried to address.
00:13:30:06 - 00:13:56:17
Jose Gomez
Yeah, we, I think we did the decent job on that. We created a database for these. Most of the experiments are fully open of very long term experiments like 20 year. We talked before about uncertainty in the results, like 20 years on concentration of agriculturalists in cereal crops in Austria or 50 year long thing experiment in Austria or 20 years in three crops in Spain.
00:13:56:17 - 00:14:20:22
Jose Gomez
So the idea is that we invest a lot of time and money in generating the data. But sometimes we don't make appropriate use of it. And what is very interested in science is actually different people looking at the same data or gathering the same data see something that the initial researcher didnt catch it. So I think we put a lot of efforts in that.
00:14:21:00 - 00:14:23:16
Jose Gomez
We are one of the part of the project that we are really happy.
00:14:23:19 - 00:14:27:01
Abigail Acton
Okay. I'm just curious to know what other tools you developed. Actually.
00:14:27:03 - 00:14:50:14
Jose Gomez
There was the intercultural scene between who is the owner of the data that is very different in Europe and in China. So we need to deal with it. So it it's something it's one of the points that we could have made more progress. We we have had more personal relationship. I think everyone wanted to have a broad look of very long term experiments in European agricultural conservation.
00:14:50:16 - 00:15:00:08
Abigail Acton
Excellent. So that's the the background with regards to the mechanics of what you were doing, but what's the practical application? So can you tell me a little bit about some of the tools that you've developed that can actually help on the ground?
00:15:00:09 - 00:15:23:07
Jose Gomez
So a lot of them would be objects. A common situation in many countries like Spain is that you have a drought, you have different tree crops and you need to be say how to allocate the limiting among of water to do the minimum damage to the needs for the trees. So one of the things developed by mother is called three what that is fully available on the web to help to make these decisions to farmers or to policymakers.
00:15:23:07 - 00:15:51:18
Jose Gomez
You're working in a big irrigated district or we also develop another tool. You know, we talk about precision farming. We may talk about many different things, for instance you want to irrigate, you want to fractionated your field in different area where you can usually get with differing amounts. All right. You are using a fertilizer. You actually. So we developed again, another tool that is fully available on the web to help you to divide.
00:15:51:21 - 00:16:00:12
Jose Gomez
You have a big field to help you to divide your field. In two or three, you can have 20, No, two or three. So you have an optimum to divide
00:16:00:18 - 00:16:04:24
Abigail Acton
And that's what you mean by fracture, right? Yeah, You mean divide up divided.
00:16:05:00 - 00:16:33:05
Jose Gomez
Yeah. Yeah. So that's another tool we develop. We are also developed up fresh blossoms. But another thing that happens in all this issue of conservation, farming and irrigation is that because it comes from the academic world, we have different language for the same technologies or different technologies with the same language. What creates havoc amongst the stakeholders and policymakers?
00:16:33:09 - 00:16:40:02
Jose Gomez
So basically we develop our joint best management practice handbook with an APP to help farmers.
00:16:40:06 - 00:16:42:07
Abigail Acton
And I stop you for a second. What do you mean by an APP?
00:16:42:08 - 00:16:46:19
Jose Gomez
An APP is something for Android where you can take it in your phone.
00:16:46:22 - 00:16:49:18
Abigail Acton
Okay, so basically it's like a common dictionary.
00:16:49:20 - 00:17:11:16
Jose Gomez
Yeah, it's a common dictionary. It's something a little bit more is a common dictionary made by their Chinese Europeans colleagues. So it's now in Chinese, English, Spanish and it can be in another language. So I want to do so. There is very easy decision rules to pinpoint if you are a farmer which might be the best strategy for your condition
00:17:11:16 - 00:17:33:08
Jose Gomez
So it's not the final word, but it can help you to deice, to have the ability to have to have investment. And your main focus is on water Due to some technologies, you are on a small farmer and you are in very steep slope. You know that you are a more rational choice of best technology will be in.
00:17:33:10 - 00:17:44:24
Jose Gomez
So we develop that as one of the more co-operative things in the whole project. So that's now available in the web as PDF as an APP can be downloaded from the repository.
00:17:45:02 - 00:18:04:24
Abigail Acton
That sounds fascinating, really interesting. And I know that you're very motivated to see new ideas and innovations actually be practically used in the field. So this is why you're making the data available and understandable to various users. So thank you very much for that. Do we have any observations or comments to make to Jose ?Yes, Didier?
00:18:05:08 - 00:18:29:04
Didier Neuzeret
I understand what Jose is doing. As you point out, develop a tool that is dedicated to plant phenotyping. So looking for seeds that can grow correctly with a scarcity of water. And then we also deal with people in China because in our historical market we have plenty of cooperation in China. So I can understand what he's doing and all the people there are.
00:18:29:08 - 00:18:37:05
Didier Neuzeret
You need to have someone who you can fit with in order to to do good science. But I think the Chinese people are very efficient.
00:18:37:11 - 00:19:00:00
Abigail Acton
Excellent. Thank you very much. Super. Well, in fact, Didier I'm going to turn to you now. So that was timely. Your team at Viewpoint, the company behind the ToxMate Project, has focused on behavioral analysis of animals such as zebrafish for neuroscience research. Now you've moved into measuring eco toxicology with a focus on water pollution. So can you tell us more about the species you're using?
00:19:00:02 - 00:19:34:17
Didier Neuzeret
In fact, we more we came to a cooperation with the writing of France, which is a public research center dedicated to agronomy and eco toxicology. And we have had the idea to use the people living in the water to ask them whether the quality of the water is good. And after several years of research, we came to the conclusion that we found three organisms that are very interesting, which are more extreme, which is a gamma rays, then a water snail, which is called a radix and a leech.
00:19:34:22 - 00:20:01:05
Didier Neuzeret
And simply looking at their behavior, we can detect micro pollutants in the water in a matter of minutes. So that's quite new. But that's a solution that is really interesting because at the moment we say that you can have between 200,000, 300,000 compounds in the water. So physical, chemical analysis is no sense. Ask people about it will be quite good.
00:20:01:07 - 00:20:09:16
Abigail Acton
Right? Because there's just so many things to look for. So can you tell me a little bit about how this actually works in practice? Multiple tanks, How does this work?
00:20:09:18 - 00:20:46:02
Didier Neuzeret
So this is a system very simple and fight this just like an American fridge. You can put it at the exhaust of wastewater treatment plant, either European or industrial, and we pump continuously the water. We filter literally the water. We keep the temperature steady and we add oxygen, and then we send these water in real time to some tanks where we have all three spaces in different tanks and we have cameras looking at them in real time and that are analyzing their behavior.
00:20:46:04 - 00:20:52:06
Didier Neuzeret
And in 2 to 10 minutes, they can tell you whether there are some micro pollutants in the water.
00:20:52:08 - 00:20:57:13
Abigail Acton
That's fascinating. And what sort of things are you testing for? What sort of pollutants are revealed?
00:20:57:16 - 00:21:14:21
Didier Neuzeret
More or less, we are sensitive to whatever are things that stress the animal. So it can be a metals, it can be pesticides, it can be biocides, it can be whatever is disturbing for the normal life of the species.
00:21:14:21 - 00:21:21:07
Abigail Acton
And so you can observe that something is happening and that they are reacting, which is indicative of the fact that there are pollutants present.
00:21:21:07 - 00:21:22:02
Didier Neuzeret
Exactly.
00:21:22:04 - 00:21:28:04
Abigail Acton
But then what happens afterwards? So what the I guess it's mainly water companies. They get alerted and what can they do?
00:21:28:04 - 00:21:59:09
Didier Neuzeret
Yeah, they can be alerted in real time. So either they have a way to like, let's say, to store the water for a moment or they can start an advanced treatment which is able to remove micro pollutants so we can more or less trigger those processes and we can also make them work when it's necessary. I mean, we have, for example, automation or activated carbon that can be used to remove the micro pollutants, but those are very expensive processes.
00:21:59:09 - 00:22:04:02
Didier Neuzeret
So if you can trigger that when it's necessary and then you can save some money.
00:22:04:02 - 00:22:13:21
Abigail Acton
Yeah. So basically it's much more efficient. And as you say, rapid are water companies are showing interest? Is it just for water companies or other organizations? And what's the reaction out there.
00:22:14:02 - 00:22:43:00
Didier Neuzeret
Let's say at the moment while working with big names that supply tools for for for such problems that more and more we have municipalities that are dealing directly with their water. So we have to prove them that we are efficient and we have to add them in introducing this technology and its use for not only wastewater, but it's so sensitive that we can also use it for drinking water.
00:22:43:08 - 00:22:53:11
Abigail Acton
Yeah, this all sounds very interesting. It's quite a different direction from the usual work of your company. What do you hope that talks will achieve and why did you go in this direction?
00:22:53:13 - 00:23:22:18
Didier Neuzeret
Let's say our historical market is for neuroscience. We have been working with scientists, with researchers for more than 30 years and every they were looking for new ideas. They asking us whether we can add them in doing new to different things and ear We change our mind because we went to a different field of application. We are of our knowledge of analyzing of the behavior, and we say, what can we do?
00:23:22:23 - 00:23:38:05
Didier Neuzeret
We have been working on the Alps, we have been working on the food. And now water was something that we can perhaps address. And we have this idea to ask to the organism living in the water if they can help.
00:23:38:13 - 00:23:49:23
Abigail Acton
actually ask those directly concerned. Yeah, indeed. Thank you very much. That's very interesting. Do we have any questions or observations for Didier? Everybody does! I will start with Walter. Walter.
00:23:50:00 - 00:24:09:24
Walter Immerzeel
Yeah, no, it's very fascinating. And I was wondering, can you also because I can imagine you only have a number of fixed behaviors, right? Of of order of a snail if it's stressed or not, maybe get sleepy or hyperactive or like can you also you make a link between the change in behavior and the type of pollution that is there.
00:24:10:04 - 00:24:34:16
Didier Neuzeret
Exactly. You're right. This is exactly what we are doing at the moment. And in fact, we are doing three different species and we can have a signature that is linked to the type of micro pollutants. So the next step will be to tell you what type of micro pollutant is in the water, depending on how all the three species are responding now.
00:24:34:18 - 00:24:44:24
Abigail Acton
Fascinating, isn't it? It's a great idea. And also, I love the fact that it avoids the overuse of purification systems when in fact they're actually perhaps not needed. Jose. You wanted to say something?
00:24:45:01 - 00:25:09:15
Jose Gomez
Yes. Out of curiosity, because you are moving in the direction of testing the technology within natural watercourses. Right. Like I have you try and what what have you see. I'm curious about how this biological indicator we're reacting, what reworks, how have you tried that and what is the quality?
00:25:09:15 - 00:25:33:24
Didier Neuzeret
Use it as a warning station because we have been to a places where drinking water is based on pumping of the water from a river. So we use that at the pumping place so we can check that there is no more for pollutants in the water or we can stop pumping in order to to avoid polluting the process with micropolluntants.
00:25:34:03 - 00:25:44:13
Jose Gomez
I'm fascinated because you can have a that right. I mean, you have the possibility of tasting more more substances than the ones that are usually used for water quality.
00:25:44:13 - 00:25:45:16
Didier Neuzeret
Exactly. Exactly.
00:25:45:16 - 00:25:51:15
Jose Gomez
And have you been in the situation that the standard indicators tell you the company that they want?
00:25:51:15 - 00:26:00:01
Didier Neuzeret
Plenty of times everything green and all our species are stating there no.
00:26:00:03 - 00:26:03:11
Jose Gomez
Okay. Okay. It's fantastic. Yes.
00:26:03:13 - 00:26:25:21
Abigail Acton
Isn't it. Because it's it's something that just you know, because they've got a paperwork that they can shuffle in the background. They just all happy or they're not happy. Yeah. Excellent. Thank you so much. Well, listen, thanks, all of you. That was really very interesting. And it's some it's vital work that you're all doing. And I love the way that we've gone from something really enormous, like the whole Himalayan mountain range to the reaction of a water snail who says incredibly important work.
00:26:25:21 - 00:26:31:17
Abigail Acton
We're building bridges between Europe and China and precision agriculture. Thank you so very much for your time.
00:26:31:23 - 00:26:33:11
Didier Neuzeret
That was my pleasure.
00:26:33:13 - 00:26:35:12
Walter Immerzeel
My pleasure to was great. Mine, too.
00:26:35:13 - 00:26:39:23
Abigail Acton
Good Bet you guys were all happy. Yeah. Yeah. Excellent. Thank you.
00:26:40:03 - 00:26:45:10
ALL
Bye bye. All right. Thank you. Thank you.
00:26:45:12 - 00:27:06:09
Abigail Acton
If you've enjoyed this podcast and are interested in the latest scientific research coming out of the EU, take a look at the 23 previous episodes available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts or find us on anchor follow. To stay abreast of what's coming up. Are you curious about what other EU projects are doing in the area of water and food security, climate change and water recycling?
00:27:06:11 - 00:27:28:11
Abigail Acton
The CORDIS website will give you an insight into the results of projects funded by the Horizon 2020 program that are working in this area. The website has articles and interviews that explore the results of research being conducted in a very broad range of domains and subjects from wind farms to wheat farming. There's something there for you. Maybe you're involved in a project or would like to apply for funding.
00:27:28:13 - 00:27:43:08
Abigail Acton
Check out what others are doing in your domain. So come and see the research that's revealing what makes our world tick. We're always happy to hear from you. Drop us a line Editorial at cordis dot Europa dot EU Until next time.
This is an AI transcription.
00:00:10:05 - 00:00:16:04
Abigail Acton
This is CORDIScovery.
00:00:16:06 - 00:00:44:05
Abigail Acton
Hello and welcome to this episode of CORDIScovery with me, Abigail Acton. As the 22nd of March at the United Nations World Water Day. This episode of CORDIScovery is on water, its quality and security of supply. We will travel to the high Himalayas and delve into the secret lives of freshwater snails. What can new technology tell us about the impact of climate change on the water cycle of the Himalayas, and what are the impacts throughout the vast areas that depend on the runoff?
00:00:44:07 - 00:01:04:06
Abigail Acton
What can you approaches in arable farming in China teach us, and how do we make agriculture climate smart? Is precision farming the key? And if so, how can we make that work? There are more of us living in cities and greater demand is being placed on water supplies. A fast, accurate and simple way to check levels of pollution in wastewater is to be welcomed.
00:01:04:08 - 00:01:31:16
Abigail Acton
Echo Toxicology is a fast growing field, so what can freshwater snails, leeches and shrimp tell us about the levels of micro pollutants in water? I'm delighted to say that we have some answers. These Welcome to my three guests whose work has been supported by the EU's Horizon 2020 program. Walter Immerzeel is professor of Mountain Hydrology at the University of Utrecht, where he is leading various projects at the cutting edge of climate change, glaciology and hydrology.
00:01:31:18 - 00:01:39:08
Abigail Acton
He is particularly interested in the interaction between the topography of the Himalayas and its impact on the water cycle. Hi, Walter.
00:01:39:10 - 00:01:40:05
Walter Immerzeel
Hi.
00:01:40:07 - 00:02:05:22
Abigail Acton
Research scientist at the Institute for Sustainable Agriculture at the Spanish Council for Scientific Research. Jose Gomez combines a background in agronomy and soil science. He is particularly interested in bridging the gap between research and the practical use of innovations in farming. Welcome. Jose. Didier Neuzeret is the CEO of Viewpoint, a French company that has been involved in environmental research and animal behavior analysis for 30 years.
00:02:05:24 - 00:02:13:08
Abigail Acton
He is interested in video tracking the behaviors of certain invertebrates known as bio monitoring to check pollution levels in wastewater.
00:02:13:10 - 00:02:15:11
Didier Neuzeret
Hi. I'm very pleased to be with you today.
00:02:15:11 - 00:02:29:12
Abigail Acton
And we're happy to have you. Walter, I'm going to turn to you. You've been researching the hydrology of the Himalayas since 2002. What features make this area of such interest to you and what is your project CAT setting out to do?
00:02:29:14 - 00:02:51:04
Walter Immerzeel
Yeah, thanks. It's very good question. No Himalayas. Many people think of the Himalaya as being just one mountain range in Asia, but in fact the region is very diverse, so it goes from almost the wettest place on earth on the south Side of the Himalaya to the dry mountain deserts of the Tibetan Plateau. We have the largest amount of glaciers in this region.
00:02:51:06 - 00:03:07:04
Walter Immerzeel
So also, you know, the way the atmosphere interacts with the glaciers and the water cycle is highly diverse. So that's what we try to do and get to to kind of unravel the water cycle, to see what the climate change impacts are and to detect how the regional differences are.
00:03:07:06 - 00:03:16:15
Abigail Acton
Right. Okay. And what initially attracted you to this area because it's your in your involvement with the Himalayas that's been going on for quite a long time. How did that start?
00:03:16:17 - 00:03:35:22
Walter Immerzeel
Yeah, no, I get this question quite often. I mean, I'm a guy from the from the lowest country in the world, which is completely flat and generally below the sea level. So why are you going to the Himalaya. It's a bit of a coincidence. So I went there with my wife on a honeymoon for six months. We hiked all the, the, all the tracks in Himalaya.
00:03:35:22 - 00:03:48:14
Walter Immerzeel
We were completely amazed by the landscape and then the birth of job came along and from one thing came another. And yeah, I ended up researching glaciers and mountains and mountain water for at least a decade already.
00:03:48:17 - 00:04:03:09
Abigail Acton
Fantastic. Absolutely. That's. That's great. I love it when people have personal connections with the subjects that really excite them. So tell me more about the work that you've been doing under the CAT project. How did you do your analysis and what did you find? And I guess also perhaps what were you looking for?
00:04:03:11 - 00:04:22:21
Walter Immerzeel
Yeah, while we were looking, I mean, we were dealing a lot with the issue of scale when we started out. The amount of scientific studies is quite limited there, and if they were there, they were focused on single glaciers and I was always amazed it's not about single glaciers. So if you look at the greater scheme of things, the glaciers may play only a limited role.
00:04:22:21 - 00:04:45:06
Walter Immerzeel
So I wanted to understand the entire water cycle. So how how does it work in the, let's say, the water cycle at high altitude? So there are other processes which are important. So there is snow melt, there is snow sublimation. There's of course, the glaciers, there are extreme gradients in rain and snowfall. So I try to to take a holistic view on that on the high altitude water cycle.
00:04:45:06 - 00:04:58:09
Walter Immerzeel
And that is just what we focused on. And we started at a very small scale, but we also zoomed out to look at the entire river basins and also look at the lake. How important is that water that comes from the mountains for the downstream regions?
00:04:58:11 - 00:05:11:00
Abigail Acton
Okay. You say you started at a small scale and then you zoomed out to look at the whole kind of river basins and the and the run off area. When you say you started at small scale, So tell me a little bit more about sort of what you were actually looking at.
00:05:11:02 - 00:05:32:24
Walter Immerzeel
No, we pinpointed a number of key processes. An example is, for example, many glaciers in the Himalayas are covered by debris. So there's a there's this big layer of debris which comes from erosion from the heart walls. And if there's a thick layer of debris that basically protects the ice from melt. But if it's a thin layer, it means it darkens the surface and it accelerates and melts.
00:05:32:24 - 00:05:52:20
Walter Immerzeel
You can compare it with wearing a black t shirt in summer, you feel warmer. So it's the same process. But still, we found that those debris covered glacier clogs there melt as fast as their they're clean ice twins. So we used drones and we met those glacier surfaces with very high level of detail. And we repeated that every half a year.
00:05:52:22 - 00:06:13:24
Walter Immerzeel
Then when you look at the change, you can very accurately where that melt is occurring. So we found, for example, that you have all kinds of faults on the glacier surfaces and ice cliffs, and these kind of features are sort of the catalysts of melt of this type of glacier. So that was quite new because you said like images, you can't see that because they they don't have enough detail.
00:06:13:24 - 00:06:15:02
Walter Immerzeel
So that's one example.
00:06:15:02 - 00:06:22:09
Abigail Acton
To greater resolution, as it were. And what sort of equipment did you use? You mentioned you use drones. What other kind of technology did you use?
00:06:22:14 - 00:06:44:20
Walter Immerzeel
Yeah, we use a lot of weather stations, all kinds of weather stations. So we were, I think one of the first groups who really measured snowfall and rainfall between 5006 thousand meters of altitude. So, yeah, those are extreme conditions. So you also need very rugged equipments that can last for a long time. We also faced, to be honest, a lot of problems.
00:06:44:22 - 00:07:00:06
Walter Immerzeel
So with the power supply, if is -20, the batteries, they don't like that very much and there's avalanches that have destroyed weather stations. So but overall, after after five years, we ended up with quite some interesting findings and really cool data.
00:07:00:08 - 00:07:16:19
Abigail Acton
Yeah, that sounds absolutely fascinating and not your sort of run of the mill problems facing people normally who are trying to observe topography like this. Yeah, very interesting. Thank you. And can you tell us a bit more about why it matters? And I'm interested in knowing a little bit more about what your findings have disproved.
00:07:16:24 - 00:07:40:09
Walter Immerzeel
Yeah. Okay. If you I think it's quite obvious if you add up all the people who live in the river basins which surrounds High Mountain Asia and Himalayas, Karakoram, Tibetan Plateau, then it's about 25% of the global population. So any change happening to the hydrology of the region has potentially a very large impact. And about two decades ago that was the IPCC report was published.
00:07:40:09 - 00:08:05:08
Walter Immerzeel
And one of the big messages there was the glaciers in Himalaya will disappear and Asia has rivers will most likely run dry. But what we showed is that it's actually the opposite. The glaciers will be there for quite a long time. They melt faster and that glacial melt will only decline towards the end of the century. And at the same time, most of the climate models, they predict an increase in precipitation because the hydrological cycle accelerates.
00:08:05:10 - 00:08:16:14
Walter Immerzeel
So overall, what we predict with our models is an increase in water availability. So it's not shortage of water we have to worry about, but it's basically excess of water in extreme precipitation.
00:08:16:14 - 00:08:18:06
Abigail Acton
Causing flooding downstream. You mean, for example flooding?
00:08:19:05 - 00:08:43:23
Walter Immerzeel
Exactly. Yeah. And the glaciers are retreating. And what remains is, you know, rocky areas and rocky surfaces. So all the rain that falls immediately ends up in the river. So the river flow becomes much more unpredictable. So that is one that's the main challenge to deal with. And you see that every year. The big, big disasters are happening due to extreme rainfalls, due to avalanches, due to landslides, and it's all triggered by extreme rainfall.
00:08:44:00 - 00:08:54:12
Abigail Acton
Right. Okay. That's interesting. And as you said, the retreating glaciers. Excellent. Thank you very much for telling us about that super can can I see if anybody would like to ask anything or anyone has any observations? Yeah. Didier?
00:08:54:15 - 00:09:19:01
Didier Neuzeret
I am interested in knowing you though. I will tell you about micro pollutants later on, but I'm wondering if you have had the opportunity to know what is the composition of the ice in the mountain or if the rain over there is containing micro pollutants. Because in Europe, for example, this is the case or is it the case over there?
00:09:19:03 - 00:09:40:17
Walter Immerzeel
Yeah, this is a very good question. No, I've never really focused on on water quality. The most thing that we have been doing is we did Geochemical analysis and isotope analysis to detect what is actually the source of water. But really looking at pollutants, we've not done that. I know that even I think at six or 7000 meters they have detected microplastics also in in the ice.
00:09:40:17 - 00:09:44:20
Walter Immerzeel
But yeah, I'm interested in it, but I've never really researched it myself.
00:09:44:22 - 00:09:46:11
Abigail Acton
Sounds like the next phase for another project.
00:09:46:11 - 00:09:50:10
Walter Immerzeel
Yeah, I actually. Good idea. Maybe we can do something together, see.
00:09:50:10 - 00:09:54:07
Abigail Acton
What's actually going on there. Yeah. Yeah. And the other questions or observations, Jose.
00:09:54:09 - 00:10:22:01
Jose Gomez
I mean, it's really interesting what you said about better model predictions, predict and increasing precipitation in your area. And it's something that best met ICRC in the Mediterranean because so Gottemoeller predicts more precipitation. But we see that we observed on a slight decline and they wonder, are you setting experimental reports to reduce uncertainty in the predictions or you know what I mean?
00:10:22:01 - 00:10:44:09
Walter Immerzeel
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. The climate models, as you know, are are very uncertain. So one model predicts an increase of 10%, the next one predicts a decrease of 10%. So yeah, we started with this whole monitoring of high altitude rain and snowfall. Yeah, we only started like six or seven years ago. So it's it's too early to detect any trends, but you keep coming down.
00:10:44:10 - 00:10:53:19
Walter Immerzeel
Yeah, we keep going. We try to add funding, find new projects to to make that record as long as possible because it's essential to to validate those super on certain models.
00:10:53:24 - 00:11:15:21
Abigail Acton
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you very much, Jose. I am actually going to turn to you because in a way, you're sort of covering part of the same terrain as Walter here. The SHui project is working to improve how we deal with water scarcity in European and Chinese cropping systems. And it's looking at how precision farming can help. What's holding us back when it comes to a more sustainable use of water and protecting soil health.
00:11:15:21 - 00:11:50:02
Jose Gomez
Okay, well, there are like like two blocks. One is technology and we still have part of it. Well, even inside our county, where all that technology that we have for precision farming and particularly for precision irrigation is not already in place. So that is just go there. That's a piece. But the second piece that is very clear about the policy of the rights of their water rights and how water is allocated as a society is and is the other pillar.
00:11:50:04 - 00:11:52:15
Jose Gomez
So we need to work in both.
00:11:52:17 - 00:12:04:06
Abigail Acton
Right. Okay. And you tell me a little bit more about the SHui project itself because you're bringing together organizations in Europe and in China. Tell me a little bit more about how that is working.
00:12:04:12 - 00:12:26:21
Jose Gomez
Well, it is basically a study like a group of friends. Basically, we are scientists in Europe, but we we need to be honest. We are a group of scientists. We like to work for long term experiments in relating agricultural runoff and water use. And we saw an opportunity to learn with Chinese colleagues, right. So that is basically how it started.
00:12:26:23 - 00:12:41:03
Jose Gomez
How has been the handling with COVID 19 restrictions for travel? Well, we can say we have got big success. We keep it running until the air bug one, we stop becoming personal interaction. We really suffer from them.
00:12:41:04 - 00:12:52:04
Abigail Acton
Yeah, that's impacted on us all. But I suppose particularly if you're working in close collaboration, obviously. Indeed, and maybe cross-culturally as well, it maybe is easier directly than, than via Zoom and things like that.
00:12:52:08 - 00:13:07:14
Jose Gomez
Yeah, Yeah. We do need time. I mean even within the same culture, you need time in science to develop trust. And we were working also with farmers and stakeholders so that that's the piece of the project that we didn't completely as good as we could.
00:13:07:15 - 00:13:30:05
Abigail Acton
Yeah, well that, that's for next time. So can I ask you a little bit more about your feeling about knowledge silos? Because I know one of the things that SHui as a project really wanted to do was to spread data so that it became accessible to different groups. And I think I know that the preoccupation of of the idea of knowledge sort of in pockets and not actually being accessible was something the project tried to address.
00:13:30:06 - 00:13:56:17
Jose Gomez
Yeah, we, I think we did the decent job on that. We created a database for these. Most of the experiments are fully open of very long term experiments like 20 year. We talked before about uncertainty in the results, like 20 years on concentration of agriculturalists in cereal crops in Austria or 50 year long thing experiment in Austria or 20 years in three crops in Spain.
00:13:56:17 - 00:14:20:22
Jose Gomez
So the idea is that we invest a lot of time and money in generating the data. But sometimes we don't make appropriate use of it. And what is very interested in science is actually different people looking at the same data or gathering the same data see something that the initial researcher didnt catch it. So I think we put a lot of efforts in that.
00:14:21:00 - 00:14:23:16
Jose Gomez
We are one of the part of the project that we are really happy.
00:14:23:19 - 00:14:27:01
Abigail Acton
Okay. I'm just curious to know what other tools you developed. Actually.
00:14:27:03 - 00:14:50:14
Jose Gomez
There was the intercultural scene between who is the owner of the data that is very different in Europe and in China. So we need to deal with it. So it it's something it's one of the points that we could have made more progress. We we have had more personal relationship. I think everyone wanted to have a broad look of very long term experiments in European agricultural conservation.
00:14:50:16 - 00:15:00:08
Abigail Acton
Excellent. So that's the the background with regards to the mechanics of what you were doing, but what's the practical application? So can you tell me a little bit about some of the tools that you've developed that can actually help on the ground?
00:15:00:09 - 00:15:23:07
Jose Gomez
So a lot of them would be objects. A common situation in many countries like Spain is that you have a drought, you have different tree crops and you need to be say how to allocate the limiting among of water to do the minimum damage to the needs for the trees. So one of the things developed by mother is called three what that is fully available on the web to help to make these decisions to farmers or to policymakers.
00:15:23:07 - 00:15:51:18
Jose Gomez
You're working in a big irrigated district or we also develop another tool. You know, we talk about precision farming. We may talk about many different things, for instance you want to irrigate, you want to fractionated your field in different area where you can usually get with differing amounts. All right. You are using a fertilizer. You actually. So we developed again, another tool that is fully available on the web to help you to divide.
00:15:51:21 - 00:16:00:12
Jose Gomez
You have a big field to help you to divide your field. In two or three, you can have 20, No, two or three. So you have an optimum to divide
00:16:00:18 - 00:16:04:24
Abigail Acton
And that's what you mean by fracture, right? Yeah, You mean divide up divided.
00:16:05:00 - 00:16:33:05
Jose Gomez
Yeah. Yeah. So that's another tool we develop. We are also developed up fresh blossoms. But another thing that happens in all this issue of conservation, farming and irrigation is that because it comes from the academic world, we have different language for the same technologies or different technologies with the same language. What creates havoc amongst the stakeholders and policymakers?
00:16:33:09 - 00:16:40:02
Jose Gomez
So basically we develop our joint best management practice handbook with an APP to help farmers.
00:16:40:06 - 00:16:42:07
Abigail Acton
And I stop you for a second. What do you mean by an APP?
00:16:42:08 - 00:16:46:19
Jose Gomez
An APP is something for Android where you can take it in your phone.
00:16:46:22 - 00:16:49:18
Abigail Acton
Okay, so basically it's like a common dictionary.
00:16:49:20 - 00:17:11:16
Jose Gomez
Yeah, it's a common dictionary. It's something a little bit more is a common dictionary made by their Chinese Europeans colleagues. So it's now in Chinese, English, Spanish and it can be in another language. So I want to do so. There is very easy decision rules to pinpoint if you are a farmer which might be the best strategy for your condition
00:17:11:16 - 00:17:33:08
Jose Gomez
So it's not the final word, but it can help you to deice, to have the ability to have to have investment. And your main focus is on water Due to some technologies, you are on a small farmer and you are in very steep slope. You know that you are a more rational choice of best technology will be in.
00:17:33:10 - 00:17:44:24
Jose Gomez
So we develop that as one of the more co-operative things in the whole project. So that's now available in the web as PDF as an APP can be downloaded from the repository.
00:17:45:02 - 00:18:04:24
Abigail Acton
That sounds fascinating, really interesting. And I know that you're very motivated to see new ideas and innovations actually be practically used in the field. So this is why you're making the data available and understandable to various users. So thank you very much for that. Do we have any observations or comments to make to Jose ?Yes, Didier?
00:18:05:08 - 00:18:29:04
Didier Neuzeret
I understand what Jose is doing. As you point out, develop a tool that is dedicated to plant phenotyping. So looking for seeds that can grow correctly with a scarcity of water. And then we also deal with people in China because in our historical market we have plenty of cooperation in China. So I can understand what he's doing and all the people there are.
00:18:29:08 - 00:18:37:05
Didier Neuzeret
You need to have someone who you can fit with in order to to do good science. But I think the Chinese people are very efficient.
00:18:37:11 - 00:19:00:00
Abigail Acton
Excellent. Thank you very much. Super. Well, in fact, Didier I'm going to turn to you now. So that was timely. Your team at Viewpoint, the company behind the ToxMate Project, has focused on behavioral analysis of animals such as zebrafish for neuroscience research. Now you've moved into measuring eco toxicology with a focus on water pollution. So can you tell us more about the species you're using?
00:19:00:02 - 00:19:34:17
Didier Neuzeret
In fact, we more we came to a cooperation with the writing of France, which is a public research center dedicated to agronomy and eco toxicology. And we have had the idea to use the people living in the water to ask them whether the quality of the water is good. And after several years of research, we came to the conclusion that we found three organisms that are very interesting, which are more extreme, which is a gamma rays, then a water snail, which is called a radix and a leech.
00:19:34:22 - 00:20:01:05
Didier Neuzeret
And simply looking at their behavior, we can detect micro pollutants in the water in a matter of minutes. So that's quite new. But that's a solution that is really interesting because at the moment we say that you can have between 200,000, 300,000 compounds in the water. So physical, chemical analysis is no sense. Ask people about it will be quite good.
00:20:01:07 - 00:20:09:16
Abigail Acton
Right? Because there's just so many things to look for. So can you tell me a little bit about how this actually works in practice? Multiple tanks, How does this work?
00:20:09:18 - 00:20:46:02
Didier Neuzeret
So this is a system very simple and fight this just like an American fridge. You can put it at the exhaust of wastewater treatment plant, either European or industrial, and we pump continuously the water. We filter literally the water. We keep the temperature steady and we add oxygen, and then we send these water in real time to some tanks where we have all three spaces in different tanks and we have cameras looking at them in real time and that are analyzing their behavior.
00:20:46:04 - 00:20:52:06
Didier Neuzeret
And in 2 to 10 minutes, they can tell you whether there are some micro pollutants in the water.
00:20:52:08 - 00:20:57:13
Abigail Acton
That's fascinating. And what sort of things are you testing for? What sort of pollutants are revealed?
00:20:57:16 - 00:21:14:21
Didier Neuzeret
More or less, we are sensitive to whatever are things that stress the animal. So it can be a metals, it can be pesticides, it can be biocides, it can be whatever is disturbing for the normal life of the species.
00:21:14:21 - 00:21:21:07
Abigail Acton
And so you can observe that something is happening and that they are reacting, which is indicative of the fact that there are pollutants present.
00:21:21:07 - 00:21:22:02
Didier Neuzeret
Exactly.
00:21:22:04 - 00:21:28:04
Abigail Acton
But then what happens afterwards? So what the I guess it's mainly water companies. They get alerted and what can they do?
00:21:28:04 - 00:21:59:09
Didier Neuzeret
Yeah, they can be alerted in real time. So either they have a way to like, let's say, to store the water for a moment or they can start an advanced treatment which is able to remove micro pollutants so we can more or less trigger those processes and we can also make them work when it's necessary. I mean, we have, for example, automation or activated carbon that can be used to remove the micro pollutants, but those are very expensive processes.
00:21:59:09 - 00:22:04:02
Didier Neuzeret
So if you can trigger that when it's necessary and then you can save some money.
00:22:04:02 - 00:22:13:21
Abigail Acton
Yeah. So basically it's much more efficient. And as you say, rapid are water companies are showing interest? Is it just for water companies or other organizations? And what's the reaction out there.
00:22:14:02 - 00:22:43:00
Didier Neuzeret
Let's say at the moment while working with big names that supply tools for for for such problems that more and more we have municipalities that are dealing directly with their water. So we have to prove them that we are efficient and we have to add them in introducing this technology and its use for not only wastewater, but it's so sensitive that we can also use it for drinking water.
00:22:43:08 - 00:22:53:11
Abigail Acton
Yeah, this all sounds very interesting. It's quite a different direction from the usual work of your company. What do you hope that talks will achieve and why did you go in this direction?
00:22:53:13 - 00:23:22:18
Didier Neuzeret
Let's say our historical market is for neuroscience. We have been working with scientists, with researchers for more than 30 years and every they were looking for new ideas. They asking us whether we can add them in doing new to different things and ear We change our mind because we went to a different field of application. We are of our knowledge of analyzing of the behavior, and we say, what can we do?
00:23:22:23 - 00:23:38:05
Didier Neuzeret
We have been working on the Alps, we have been working on the food. And now water was something that we can perhaps address. And we have this idea to ask to the organism living in the water if they can help.
00:23:38:13 - 00:23:49:23
Abigail Acton
actually ask those directly concerned. Yeah, indeed. Thank you very much. That's very interesting. Do we have any questions or observations for Didier? Everybody does! I will start with Walter. Walter.
00:23:50:00 - 00:24:09:24
Walter Immerzeel
Yeah, no, it's very fascinating. And I was wondering, can you also because I can imagine you only have a number of fixed behaviors, right? Of of order of a snail if it's stressed or not, maybe get sleepy or hyperactive or like can you also you make a link between the change in behavior and the type of pollution that is there.
00:24:10:04 - 00:24:34:16
Didier Neuzeret
Exactly. You're right. This is exactly what we are doing at the moment. And in fact, we are doing three different species and we can have a signature that is linked to the type of micro pollutants. So the next step will be to tell you what type of micro pollutant is in the water, depending on how all the three species are responding now.
00:24:34:18 - 00:24:44:24
Abigail Acton
Fascinating, isn't it? It's a great idea. And also, I love the fact that it avoids the overuse of purification systems when in fact they're actually perhaps not needed. Jose. You wanted to say something?
00:24:45:01 - 00:25:09:15
Jose Gomez
Yes. Out of curiosity, because you are moving in the direction of testing the technology within natural watercourses. Right. Like I have you try and what what have you see. I'm curious about how this biological indicator we're reacting, what reworks, how have you tried that and what is the quality?
00:25:09:15 - 00:25:33:24
Didier Neuzeret
Use it as a warning station because we have been to a places where drinking water is based on pumping of the water from a river. So we use that at the pumping place so we can check that there is no more for pollutants in the water or we can stop pumping in order to to avoid polluting the process with micropolluntants.
00:25:34:03 - 00:25:44:13
Jose Gomez
I'm fascinated because you can have a that right. I mean, you have the possibility of tasting more more substances than the ones that are usually used for water quality.
00:25:44:13 - 00:25:45:16
Didier Neuzeret
Exactly. Exactly.
00:25:45:16 - 00:25:51:15
Jose Gomez
And have you been in the situation that the standard indicators tell you the company that they want?
00:25:51:15 - 00:26:00:01
Didier Neuzeret
Plenty of times everything green and all our species are stating there no.
00:26:00:03 - 00:26:03:11
Jose Gomez
Okay. Okay. It's fantastic. Yes.
00:26:03:13 - 00:26:25:21
Abigail Acton
Isn't it. Because it's it's something that just you know, because they've got a paperwork that they can shuffle in the background. They just all happy or they're not happy. Yeah. Excellent. Thank you so much. Well, listen, thanks, all of you. That was really very interesting. And it's some it's vital work that you're all doing. And I love the way that we've gone from something really enormous, like the whole Himalayan mountain range to the reaction of a water snail who says incredibly important work.
00:26:25:21 - 00:26:31:17
Abigail Acton
We're building bridges between Europe and China and precision agriculture. Thank you so very much for your time.
00:26:31:23 - 00:26:33:11
Didier Neuzeret
That was my pleasure.
00:26:33:13 - 00:26:35:12
Walter Immerzeel
My pleasure to was great. Mine, too.
00:26:35:13 - 00:26:39:23
Abigail Acton
Good Bet you guys were all happy. Yeah. Yeah. Excellent. Thank you.
00:26:40:03 - 00:26:45:10
ALL
Bye bye. All right. Thank you. Thank you.
00:26:45:12 - 00:27:06:09
Abigail Acton
If you've enjoyed this podcast and are interested in the latest scientific research coming out of the EU, take a look at the 23 previous episodes available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts or find us on anchor follow. To stay abreast of what's coming up. Are you curious about what other EU projects are doing in the area of water and food security, climate change and water recycling?
00:27:06:11 - 00:27:28:11
Abigail Acton
The CORDIS website will give you an insight into the results of projects funded by the Horizon 2020 program that are working in this area. The website has articles and interviews that explore the results of research being conducted in a very broad range of domains and subjects from wind farms to wheat farming. There's something there for you. Maybe you're involved in a project or would like to apply for funding.
00:27:28:13 - 00:27:43:08
Abigail Acton
Check out what others are doing in your domain. So come and see the research that's revealing what makes our world tick. We're always happy to hear from you. Drop us a line Editorial at cordis dot Europa dot EU Until next time.
Insights and ideas
What can new technology tell us about the impact of climate change on the water cycle of the Himalayas, and what are the impacts through the vast areas that depend on the run-off? What can new approaches in farming in China teach us, and how do we make agriculture ‘climate smart’. Is precision farming the key? And if so, how can we make that work? There are more of us living in cities and greater demands being placed on water supplies. A fast, accurate and simple way to check levels of pollution in wastewater is to be welcomed. Ecotoxicology is a fast-growing field, so what can freshwater snails, leeches and shrimps tell us about the levels of micropollutants in water? Our three guests, whose work has been supported by the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme, have some answers: Walter Immerzeel(opens in new window), professor of Mountain Hydrology at Utrecht University, led the CAT project, which looked at the interface between climate change, glaciology and hydrology. Research scientist at the Institute for Sustainable Agriculture(opens in new window) of the Spanish National Research Council, José Gomez(opens in new window), combines a background in agronomy and soil science. He helped coordinate the SHui project, which bridged the gap between research findings and on-the-ground innovations in China and Europe. Didier Neuzeret(opens in new window) is the CEO of ViewPoint, a French company that has been involved in environmental research and animal behaviour analysis for 30 years. ViewPoint(opens in new window) hosted the ToxMate project, which video-tracked the behaviours of certain invertebrates, known as bio monitoring, to check pollution levels in wastewater.
Happy to hear from you!
If you have any feedback, we’re always happy to hear from you! Send us any comments, questions or suggestions to the usual email address, editorial@cordis.europa.eu.