31/08/2023 News
The Pilot Rivers, the only open-air laboratory of its kind in Europe
- An infrastructure comprising 16 artificial water courses was built in the year 2000, at the Platform for Experimental Research in Lacq (PERL).
- Unique in the industry in Europe, the Pilot Rivers are designed to study the impact of different molecules on fresh water using biological indicators.
- A partnership with the University of Pau and the Pays de l’Adour and an international group, drives the research forward.
"Fed by the waters of the Gave de Pau, one of the tributaries of the Adour, the Pilot Rivers are representative of this ecosystem. There are 16 channels, 40 meters long, exposed to natural light and actual weather conditions. They are supplied by water of very good quality (17/20), ideal for studying the impact of different molecules, or changes to the environment," explains Patrick Baldoni-Andrey, Head of the Environment and Sustainable Development department at the PERL. "Groundbreaking in the 2000s, the infrastructure was created to plan ahead for increasingly stringent regulations governing discharge into the natural environment, and is a true replication of the biodiversity of a river. It can be used to measure the potential toxicity of different compounds and to test different water monitoring systems." he adds.
The campaigns in Lacq under the microscope
An exposure campaign lasts around three months. The first step is seeding. The pilot rivers team, comprising two engineers and three technicians, allows water to run into the nursery. It’s full of pebbles, sediments and other natural substrates from the Gave de Pau. The water then runs into the 16 channels, and in just four weeks, they will be colonized by living organisms - fauna and flora. Once the ecosystem has been perfectly replicated, we can move on to the next step, i.e. exposure, which also lasts four weeks. "It involves evaluating the toxicity of different compounds - complex mixtures of products, hydrocarbons, metals, additives, discharge from water treatment - on the aquatic environment." Step three is the natural recovery phase that lasts for a month after the exposure phase. Its purpose is to study the reversibility of the different phenomena. Data are collected using different impact monitoring devices: sensors, analyses, metering, and increasingly, information given by the living organisms, in particular snail shells, that are a perfect indicator of water quality. “In twenty years, water monitoring systems have changed considerably, moving from chemical monitoring, to monitoring through wildlife,” Patrick Baldoni-Andrey continues. "The pilot rivers give accurate biological indicators, help assess the inherent risks of different substances and find alternatives to protect the receiving environment".
An industrial chair in Pau
Since 2019, the Pilot Rivers have been the subject of a partnership and an industrial chair with the University of Pau and the Pays de l’Adour (UPPA) and the Anglo-Australian mining group, Rio Tinto. The trio leads a shared research program on the impacts of metals on the natural environment. It involves studying the bioavailability of metals, i.e. their potential toxicity on the environment (quantity, form, etc.), using the reactions of living organisms in the water to improve the tracking of the metals and their impact , incorporating the new genomics (science that studies the genome, a term that can be summarized as all the genetic material stored as DNA in the cells of an individual or species) tools to run faster and more exhaustive analyses. "In the past, we scraped the biofilms that formed on stones and sent the samples to taxonomists – biologists specialized in the classification and diversity of living things – and today we sample the same biofilms and analyze them using genomics, a much more efficient method that gives faster and more comprehensive results," explains Patrick Baldoni-Andrey. Over the last four years, the chair, which could be renewed until 2029, has served to gain even more knowledge in terms of in situ impact measurements: the accuracy of eco-toxicological data, evidence of low toxicity and zero impacts, planning ahead for regulatory developments and the use of genomics tools in Company practices.
