July, 2022 – We are cooperating with a team of specialists on new research to monitor and remove toxic substances penetrating the soil and the related ecosystem from contaminated sources. We research sustainable methods that can help prevent their negative impact.
Long-term and dangerous environmental burden starts in former landfills, old factories, and polluted areas. Toxic substances are spreading further unnoticed, into vegetation and animals, which directly endangers the health of people.
The pilot project APEIRON (Researching new, ecologically accepted steps in the remediation of areas polluted by contaminants from military areas), was announced by the Ministry of Defense SR, which has the decontamination of such areas under its management. The goal of the project is to suggest and test a system for neutralizing contamination. “Map sources of contamination identify the direction of its spreading, analyze the types of pollutants present, propose and verify a cleaning procedure. All of that with the help of technology so that the verified procedure can be repeated in other places. Over time a unified database of sites and remediation approaches will be created and it will be possible to monitor and verify the results,” explains YMS Business Development Director Radovan Hilbert.
YMS is creating a dispersion model of the contamination on our platform yDecision for spatial decision making, modeling, and evaluating the best variants.”We will evaluate the contaminated area and create a digital model for identifying vectors for the spreading of the substances from confirmed sources of pollution. We will evaluate the model with results from remediated soil that is occuring simultaneously to the software development,” continues Radovan Hilbert.
Systematic monitoring of contaminated areas and neutralizing the negative effects of pollutants are very important. Pollutants spread undetected, often times right into the food chain. The pilot project will take place on three hectares of soil in the area of Zemianske Kostoľany, on land owned by the administration of Military Forests and Estates. “Infested areas are overgrown with grass and animals intended for hunting graze on them. The harmful substances were found in the meat of the hunted animals, which shows the big problem of spreading toxicity,” explains the head of the IT Department of Military Forests and Assets SR, š.p., Miroslav Čongrády.
Experts will test soil remediation with a bioactive substrate. “We chose an ecological approach that is already used in the world. A substrate composed of active biological substances based on the type of contaminant will be worked into the soil. These organisms break down harmful substances into non-toxic ones. We then sow soybeans into the treated soil, which will bind the harmful substances. After harvest, we analyze the amount of the original harmful substances present in the soybeans and the resulting values will show the effectiveness of the whole process. We will repeat the same procedure twice in a row over the course of two years,” says Miroslav Čongrády, Director of IT of Military Forests and Assets, describing the cleaning process of pilot areas.
_____
Team YMS specializes in projects where satellite technology combined with GIS analysis software can help. We choose the segments of farming or life that are difficult to solve because they require high expertise, long-term research, and properly performed analyses.