The Black Sea Investitative Monitoring – Analysis of water, sediments, biota

UNDP Istanbul Regional Hub is implementing EU funded project: “European Union for Improving Environmental Monitoring in the Black Sea (EU4EMBLAS). The project activities include also collection of new data sets, covering new monitoring parameters with use of innovative techniques for identification of chemical contaminants, such as wide-scope screening (target) or suspect screening (non-target).

Nowadays the Black Sea marine ecosystem faces severe and unprecedented environmental challenges, caused by war-related pollution. This applies specifically (i) for the destruction of the dam of Nova Kakhovka Hydropower plant on Dnipro river in June 2023, when the consequent flood wave brought large amounts of nutrients, chemical and biological contaminants to the Black Sea, and (ii) pollution from two Russian tankers which sunk at Kerch Strait in December 2024, when thousands of tons of fuel oil were released into the Black Sea in a wave spreading along the Ukrainian coast and beyond. These large-scale environmental disasters create significant pressure on the Black Sea environment. At present, the extent of their adverse effect is not known. Any follow up remedial measures require systematic investigation into the pollution’s transportation dynamics and assessment of its long-term effects on the impacted ecosystem. 

Therefore, UNDP is seeking a specialized environmental company / laboratory to carry out analyses of samples by the state-of-the-art chemical, biological and microbiological methodologies matching or exceeding those used in the previous EMBLAS projects and providing the following services::

1. Sampling of 20 seawater, 10 sediments and 10 biota samples;
2. Transporting samples from Odesa to national and EU laboratories;
3. Analysis of metals and chemical organic pollutants in the collected samples – wide-scope target screening >2,400 pollutants, suspect screening >95,000 pollutants in EU laboratories;
4. Analysis of biological parameters – 12 locations (benthic invertebrates, phytoplankton, zooplankton, phytobenthos, macrophytes) in Odesa Bay water body and assessment of its environmental/ecological status.
5. Analysis of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) genes and Analysis of biodiversity by environmental DNA (eDNA) in at keast 5 seawater samples.
6. Application of hydrodynamic modelling to predict possible transport of oil pollution from Kerch Strait to Odesa coast;
7. Providing the results of analyses with metadata in the format of Data Collection Templates compatible with IPCHEM and the NORMAN Database System and Preparing Final Analytical Report(s), containing of: a) Results of application of hydrodynamic modelling; b) Ecological risk assessment; c) Proposal of Monitoring Protocol; d) Mitigation and Policy Recommendations.

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Kind regards

Procurement IRH