Objective
The widespread and costly environmental impacts of sediment and associated contaminants on aquatic ecosystems are recognised by scientists, land managers and policy makers worldwide. While considerable effort is being made to reduce sediment and contaminant fluxes in European river basins, longer-term storage of contaminants in sedimentary sinks presents a credible threat to achieving EU water quality targets. Sedimentary sinks could become contaminant sources in the future. In this context, this project aims to develop an integrated approach for quantifying diffuse sources and residence times of contaminated sediment in river basins affected by industrial, mining and agricultural pollution. Development of the integrated approach will be undertaken in the River Tamar in south-west England, which is a predominantly agricultural basin with an extensive metal mining history. As such it offers a natural laboratory for exploration of key sediment-associated pollutants. The approach utilises fallout radionuclides and other sediment tracers to quantify diffuse sources of sediment and associated contaminants stored in channel deposits and transported in suspension over event and seasonal timescales. Potential sources include different agricultural land uses, mining waste deposits, channel banks, as well as secondary sources, including in-channel deposits and floodplains. The residence time of contaminated sediment in soils and channel sediments will be estimated by application of models which employ fallout radionuclides as chronometers over a range of timescales. Findings from the source and residence time analysis will be synthesized within a sediment budget framework, which can be used to directly underpin management decisions. This will provide river basin managers with a powerful tool to assess the potential impact of sedimentary sinks as secondary sources of water pollution in European rivers, a key requirement to meet the challenges of the Water Framework Directive.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
FP7-PEOPLE-2010-IIF
See other projects for this call
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Coordinator
PL4 8AA Plymouth
United Kingdom
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.