Digital Knowledge System
Untreated Waste Water
Svalbard, Norway
Driving Factors and Motivations
Benthic communities are essential components of marine ecosystems. Due to a lack of access to proper treatment facilities, over 300,000m3 of untreated wastewater are being discharged into Adventfjorden per year, negatively affecting these critical habitats.
Aims of restoration efforts: Developing, testing, and demonstrating solutions to support the recovery of benthic ecosystems.
Objective
Reduce pressure on coastal marine ecosystems due to wastewater discharge by raising awareness among the local population and visitors that everything flushed down the toilet ends up in the fjord.
Implementation
1)
Raise awareness and get public support for advanced wastewater treatment.
2)
Establish several water sampling sites.
3)
Complete benthic community status mapping at the test site and reference site.
4)
Collect water samples from test and control site for analysis of chemical contaminants.
5)
Conduct benthic faunal analysis on sediment samples.
6)
Assess benthic biodiversity.