The river Timok with its watershed area is one of very imperilled running water on the territory of Serbia (Yugoslavia). By several years investigations of colonies bottoms (phytobenthos, microzoobenthos and macrozoobenthos) and plankton we have found the following: great diversity and specific phytobenthos and bottom fauna (frequency of certain taxa is considerably larger in relation to the other areas, and new taxa have been recorded). Stated specific structure of phytobenthos and bottom fauna have considerably reflected to right estimation of water quality of tested area.

Problems encountered in evaluating surface water quality arise from the requirements of relevant regulations that these evaluations should be made in the last favourable hydrologic conditions during design flow rate (required minimum flow). However, the major part of measurements of water quality parameters is not performed under such conditions and the result must be corrected for the conditions under required minimum flow. Two possible approaches to solving this problem are presented in this paper and explained using an example of the Juzna Morava river basin up to the Station Korvingrad, Serbia (Yugoslavia). This basin is unhomogeneous regarding its hydrologic characteristics and mass flow of pollutants. The results of analysis are presented in the cartography form using the GIS technology.

During one-year examination of the Vlasina river and its main tributaries, the Luznica and Gradska rivers, Serbia (Yugoslavia), in May 1996, the samples were taken for biological and chemical analysis of the watercourse in the spring aspect. Sampling was performed on the five localities of the Vlasina river, and two tribute localities near the mouth thus including all critical points where the changes of physico-chemical water parameters and qualitative/quantitative biocenoses compositions due to the increasing anthropogenic influence could occur. Data on phytoplankton, zooplankton, periphyton and benthos were analysed together with the physico-chemical water parameters in order to determine communities composition and structure and bioindicator species. Based on these results the status of aquatic environment i.e. water quality, was evaluated.

In this paper, the results of statistical analysis of then years water quality data of Tamis river at the Romanian-Yugoslav border ("Jasa Tomic" Control Station) are presented. Following changes of analyzed water quality parameters at the Romanian-Yugoslav border a strong trend of deterioration has been observed during analyzed period. Because of periodical accidentally high organic content (COD, BOD) and concentration of ammonia and organic nitrogen in river water, it is concluded that upstream discharging of farm waste waters was the main reason of deterioration of water quality along the Yugoslav part of Tamis river.

During three years period from 1991 to 1994, investigation of the river Kolubara (Serbia, Yugoslavia) was carried out along 35 km of water course from Valjevo to Lajkovac. The macrozoobenthos community was composed of 117 determined taxa. Of the found taxa Oligochaeta were the most diverse with 40 taxa determined. The greatest diversity of macrozoobenthos community was foound at the river section in Valjevo, upstream the mouth of Gradac (69), while the community was most uniform downstream Valjevo at Bela Stena (24 taxa). A decrease as well as an increase in the macrozoobenthos diversity was not in accordance with similar decrease or increase in saprobic index values since they were in narrow range from 2.37 to 2.59.

According to microbiological parameters, waters of both small rivers of eastern Backa, Serbia (Yugoslavia), are slightly and moderately polluted by organic matter at the most of the investigated localities in summer season. The satisfactory power of water selfpurification has been preserved in these aquatic ecosystems. In order to prevent further eutrophication processes, certain measures of river water protection and conservation should be undertaken, especially in stagnant parts of investigated waters. Also, the regular monitoring of water quality should be established.

The paper presents results of the hydroecological investigations of the Vlasina river basin, Serbia (Yugoslavia). The researches were performed in May and September 1996, as a part an annual investigation cycle. Samples were collected from five localities on the Vlasina river, and on two spots on its main tributaries - the Gradska river and Luznica, just before entering into the Vlasina. Qualitative and quantitative data on composition of phyto- and zooplankton, periphytic and benthic communities together with data obtained from physico-chemical water examinations were analysed to assess water quality of examined water courses. The results of performed monitoring were compared with informations on the sources of pollution, as well as with the data on hydrology, geomorphology, demographic variations, and recent development of tourism and industry in the Region in order to assess environmental quality of aquatic ecosystem and to suggest the conservation strategy.

The investigations of qualitative and quantitative composition of plankton and the bottom fauna of the Tisza river, Serbia (Yugoslavia), were conducted during 1998. According to the analyses of the indicator species of hydrobionts, saprobic index was calculated, and the estimation of the water quality of the lower flow of the dam near Novi Becej on the structure and abundance of the investigated organisms.

In this paper we have pointed out the hydrogeological condition in the catchment area of the Jablanica river in the south Serbia (Yugoslavia). The two units are separately presented here. The first one is mountainous part of the catchment area upstream of the gaging station of Lebane and the second one is the part of the terrain in the plain down stream to the river mounth near Pecenjevac. The hydrogeological characteristics of the two mentioned regions are given to explain the reasons of existing the constant flow of the Jablanica to Lebane and its disappearing course in the period of recession in the plain downstream. The quality of water in the Jablanica river at Lebane is good. Down stream of this gaging station the waste water collector flows into the river. In the part of recession period the ratio between them is unfavourable. We have also discussed the quality of water at the gaging station of Pecenjevac and pointed out the function of sandy-gravel deposits in the process of natural purification of the Jablanica flow.

International audience | This paper presents a new Remote Hyperspectral Imaging System (RHIS) embedded on an Unmanned Aquatic Drone (UAD) for plastic detection and identification in coastal and freshwater environments. This original system, namely the Remotely Operated Vehicle of the University of Littoral Côte d’Opale (ROV-ULCO), works in a near-field of view, where the distance between the hyperspectral camera and the water surface is about 45 cm. In this paper, the new ROV-ULCO system with all its components is firstly presented. Then, a hyperspectral image database of plastic litter acquired with this system is described. This database contains hyperspectral data cubes of different plastic types and polymers corresponding to the most-common plastic litter items found in aquatic environments. An in situ spectral analysis was conducted from this benchmark database to characterize the hyperspectral reflectance of these items in order to identify the absorption feature wavelengths for each type of plastic. Finally, the ability of our original system RHIS to automatically recognize different types of plastic litter was assessed by applying different supervised machine learning methods on a set of representative image patches of marine litter. The obtained results highlighted the plastic litter classification capability with an overall accuracy close to 90%. This paper showed that the newly presented RHIS coupled with the UAD is a promising approach to identify plastic waste in aquatic environments.