Finland to help Ukraine with water quality monitoring in 2025-2028 – Minister of Natural Resources
Finland will help Ukraine in assessing environmental damage and monitoring water quality and biodiversity, said Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine Svitlana Hrynchuk.
"Finland is an important partner of Ukraine in implementing environmental projects and promoting Paragraph 8 of the Peace Formula on environmental security. We work together on environmental issues during the war and receive assistance not only in theory but also in practice. With the Director General of the Finnish Environment Institute, Leif Schulman, we signed documents to launch the project Support for Ukraine in Assessing Environmental Damage and Developing Water Quality and Biodiversity Monitoring, which will operate in 2025-2028 and will be financed by the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs," she wrote on Facebook on Wednesday.
Hrynchuk noted that Finland's water monitoring system is one of the best in Europe.
The project funds will be used to complete tasks in the following areas: screening studies of pilot river basins affected by military actions; acquisition of a mobile laboratory for monitoring waters in the Northern region; exchange of experience with Finnish colleagues and training of specialists of water monitoring laboratories to ensure that studies are carried out in accordance with the requirements of the EU Water Framework Directive.
As well as: audit of the data management and reporting system in water monitoring laboratories and synchronization of the Ukrainian system with European practices; assistance to Ukraine in developing water and biodiversity monitoring roadmaps for strategic planning and determining steps to implement the requirements of EU directives; strengthening the technical capacity of water monitoring laboratories; strengthening the use of satellite data as a powerful tool for environmental monitoring.
According to the minister, over the course of almost three years of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, more than 744 water management infrastructure facilities have been damaged or destroyed, worth more than UAH 500 million.
Hrynchuk also noted that Finland supports Ukraine in developing modern air monitoring. "We expect air monitoring posts to be delivered to Ukraine soon with the support of the Finnish Meteorological Institute," she wrote.