The concept of regulatory support of the environmental safety of surface waters (pilot scheme)

Summary

The concept of regional environmental standards for pollutant concentration in water bodies is presented. The substantiation of a statistical model for calculating regional environmentally admissible pollutant concentrations in the Neva Bay and in the eastern part of the Gulf of Finland is given. The comparison of estimated values of environmentally admissible concentrations with the relevant hygienic and fisheries maximum permissible concentrations showed that they could be more stringent (for phosphorus, ammonia ions, nitrates), less stringent (for BOD5) or coincide with maximum permissible concentration (for nitrites, mercury). The suggested draft calculation procedure of the regional environmental standards got an approval of the Federal Environmental Inspection. The given procedure can be used for water bodies with low mineralization.

Key words

pollutants , environmentally admissible concentration , statistical model , ecological limiting sign of harm , environmentally admissible loadings