APRIORA Final Conference in Helsinki

The 14th and 15th of September, APRIORA held its final conference in Helsinki. The conference was organized back to back with the annual meeting of the expert group hazardous substances, taking place the following two days.

The event brought together project partners, environmental authorities, water utilities and researchers from across the Baltic Sea Region to review the main results and discuss how they can support the cost-effective implementation of advanced wastewater treatment on a river basin scale under the new EU wastewater treatment directive.

Sessions covered water quality and mass-flow modelling, antimicrobial resistance and pharmaceutical risk assessment, and piloting results from five river catchments, alongside a hands-on workshop introducing the APRIORA QGIS toolbox.

Podium discussions, poster sessions and networking connected these findings with regional and national efforts to reduce micropollutant emissions into our waters. There was broad agreement that harmonized, evidence-based approaches and tools such as APRIORA are of great benefit. However, the challenges associated with financing “end-of-pipe” measures were also discussed at length.

It became clear that these must be embedded in a comprehensive strategy for mitigating hazardous substances already starting with targeted measures upstream. Marius Raudkivi and Normunds Vagalis addressed this issue and explained the HAZGONE approach at the conference.

Great thanks to the interreg Baltic Sea Region program for funding and to all partners making the project and the conference a great success.

Programme Manual Online

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