Eawag Annual Report 2022

TEACHING
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dam burst in the country’s largest diamond mine, toxic
metals entered the Kasai River. This led downstream in
the Congo to several thousand people being poisoned
and twelve dead. Odermatt’s team determined the
concentrations of suspended particles: it was 60 to 80
times higher than the national threshold limits. “Such
concentrations are lethal to fish, regardless of composition,”
Odermatt said.
Valentin Flauraud, Eawag / Keystone
Complex and dynamic environmental systems
Other examples were also presented at the Info Day,
such as how drone images or videos distributed via social
media can be used for remote sensing. This wide
variety of research methods serves a single purpose,
said water physicist Damien Bouffard, research group
leader in the Surface Waters Department and associate
professor at the University of Lausanne. “We
want to better understand water bodies as complex
and dynamic environmental systems – and develop
sustainable solutions to problems.” Bouffard and his
team have developed the “Datalakes” platform, which
can host and bring together a wealth of data from a
wide range of sources. The data is publicly accessible
on the platform. The data can be combined, visualised
and extracted in any way. But communication between
all the parties involved is needed so that exactly
the data is collected that is actually needed, and so
that potential users are even aware of the existence of
the data and can also inter pret it. The lively exchange
between representatives from research, practice and
authorities at the Eawag Info Day made an important
contribution to this.
In addition to the lecture programme, participants had the opportunity
to experience some of the tools on site, for example,
drones for monitoring rivers, presented by the University of
Lausanne.
Valentin Flauraud, Eawag / Keystone
The Eawag Info Day 2022 provided an overview of recently
developed methods for monitoring surface waters.