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News, March 2013

A Seminar “Methods of Achieving Responsible Water Management” was Conducted at Samara State Technical University

Alina Kopnina describes waste water treatment methods

Dmitry Efimov speaks about the significance of responsible water management

On March 18, 2013, a seminar on waste water treatment attended by 27 students was organized at Samara State Technical University (SamGTU) under the program Responsible Water Resources Management for Sustainable Development carried out by the Fund for Sustainable Development (Moscow) and the Alcoa Foundation.

The seminar was devoted to three key issues: the need to introduce rational water use practices in the region; the shortage of professionals employed in the field of designing, developing and implementing industrial sewage treatment technologies; and sharing and disseminating information about the latest developments in this field.

The presenters spoke about how best to shift to responsible water resources management, one of the areas being industrial waste water treatment. Dr. Kopnina, deputy dean of the Chemical Technology and Industrial Ecology Department of SamGTU, touched upon the existing water purification problems and informed the audience about the University’s successes in this field.

Olga Zavodskaya, SamGTU post-graduate student, and firth year students Olga Egorova and Anastasia Petrova, described one of the most efficient methods of treating industrial waste water – by phytocleaning and phytoremediation. The speakers also shared their experience of research work in this field and made a presentation of their findings that reflected quite a high level of cleaning of industrial sewage from contaminating agents.

Dmitry Efimov, an environmental public education specialist from the Education Center of Ecology and Safety, summarized the results of the seminar and focused on the topical significance of developing new industrial waste water cleaning techniques in contemporary conditions and warned about the possible aggravation of the environmental situation if no action was taken to ensure responsible water management.