A GIS developed for risk assessment of stream pollution caused by olive oil factories in Kolymvari, Crete

2006

Sarakiotis, I.

Olive mill wastewater (OMWW) is the main by - product of olive oil production. OMWW is considered to be a very heavy organic pollutant with serious environmental effects. In Crete, it has been shown that OMWW discharge in rivers has resulted in a significant reduction in their biodiversity. The aim of this work was to assess and map the environmental risk to surface water resources caused by olive mill wastewater pollution in the area of Kolymvari, Crete, Greece. The methodology used involved locating the source points of pollution and collecting their waste volumetric data and ownership status. The surface flowpaths of pollution were modelled using GIS tools. Risk evaluation of each source point of pollution was implemented using Multi Criteria Analysis in a GIS environment. Possible sedimentation areas of OMWW in the drainage network were considered to be areas of high risk, and were mapped using GIS tools. The accumulative pollution risk in each watershed was evaluated based on the risk of pollution at the source points of pollution, plus the accumulative pollution risk at possible sedimentation areas. The methodology used proved to be a very practical, fast and cheap means of evaluating the environmental risk posed by OMWW in the study area. Finally, it was proposed that additional criteria be employed to evaluate the risk of pollution to microbial communities of the soil and groundwater resources and that object oriented classification be used to mole easily locate the olive mill waste tanks in order to improve on the current methodology used.

2009/QC/QC2009_0.rdf