The Opening Meeting of the "Receiving Environment Based Discharge Limit Determination - Küçük Menderes Basin Pilot Project", which was supported with a large-scale budget in the 'Sustainable Water Management Call Program' opened within the scope of TÜBİTAK 1003 Priority Areas R&D Projects Support Program, was held on November 23, 2018 at MMO Tepe Kule Congress and Exhibition Center, Izmir.
The aim of the project is to examine and synthesize the approaches applied in the European Union Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC) (WFD) and the United States of America (USA) in order to determine the standards of discharges to surface water resources, to develop receiving environment-based discharge limits and to present a modeling and optimization-based solution approach that can be applied in the basins of our country.
The project is managed by the Environment and Cleaner Production Institute (ÇTÜE) of TÜBİTAK Marmara Research Center (MAM). The project executing partners are İzmir Dokuz Eylül (DEÜ) and Pamukkale Universities (PAÜ). The project duration is 30 months.
Izmir Provincial Directorate of Environment and Urbanization, Izmir Provincial Directorate of Agriculture and Forestry, 2nd Regional Directorate of State Hydraulic Works, Izmir Provincial Directorate of Industry and Trade, Izmir General Directorate of Water and Sewerage Administration, Izmir Chamber of Commerce, Izmir Development Agency (IZKA), Izmir Branch of TMMOB Chamber of Environmental Engineers, representatives of OIZs and industrial organizations in Izmir Province participated in the meeting.
The opening speech of the meeting was made by Dr. Selma Ayaz, Project Manager. Dr. Mehmet Dilaver, Expert Researcher from TÜBİTAK-MAM METUE, made a presentation on the project and the methods to be used in the project. Subsequently, Prof. Dr. Alper Elçi, project coordinator of DEU group and faculty member of the Department of Environmental Engineering, made a presentation titled "Determination of Küçük Menderes Water Quality by Applying Mathematical Modeling" and gave information on how to simulate precipitation, flow and transport processes with mathematical modeling. Then, Prof. Dr. Mustafa Tamer Ayvaz, faculty member of the Department of Civil Engineering and project coordinator of the PAU group, made a presentation titled "Determination of Receiving Environment Based Industrial Discharge Standards with Simulation-Optimization Models".
In the closing part of the meeting, there was an exchange of views between the participants and the project staff. It was concluded that the realization of the project will be very useful to develop a modeling and optimization based approach for the control of priority pollutants that adversely affect water resources at the basin scale.
