Advanced Monitoring of Urban River: an integrated perspective

The quality of urban rivers is strictly connected with the quality of city’s life. At both national and international level there is a lack of a comprehensive evaluation of the river water status in the urban district. This is mainly due to the parameters used for the definition of the status, which are unable to highlight the complexity of all the players engaged, as well as to a deficit in the monitoring objectives. Indeed, the environmental policy in force neglects the investigation of the causes of the water quality status, which is a compulsory element to design effective actions for restoration or protection of the urban river ecosystem. The present study aims to propose an integrated monitoring approach to characterise, quantify and describe the entire system made by the river and the surrounding interacting urban environment, with specific focus on sources and fate of traditional and emerging pollutants. The monitoring procedure will allow the identification of the causes of the water status taking advantage of an intersectoral approach and advanced tracking techniques (i.e. stable isotope signature). Indeed, the core of the evaluation will be the contaminants of emerging concern, including microplastics, with reference to their sources and background level.