Intensifying UzhNU's project activities while preserving the environment!

The year 2024 was fruitful for Uzhhorod National University in terms of new achievements not only due to this year's admission campaign, but also in terms of project activities, including cross-border ones. Thus, our teams became the winners of another cross-border program of the European Union: two projects will be funded by Interreg VI-A NEXT Hungary-Slovakia-Romania-Ukraine Program (HUSKROUA).

After reviewing the applications submitted for the first call, the Program Monitoring Committee selected 43 projects for funding, including two prepared by Uzhhorod National University. These are the initiatives of the teams of the Department of Entomology and Biodiversity Conservation (Faculty of Biology) and the Department of Geodesy, Land Management and Geoinformatics (Faculty of Geography), which will be implemented in partnership with a number of organizations in the Zakarpattia region and the border of neighboring countries.  

Thus, thanks to the funding of the HUSKROUA program, the team of the Faculty of Biology, together with the Pavol Jozef Safaryk University in Košice (Slovakia) and the Institute for the Development of the Carpathian Region (Uzhhorod), will be able to implement a joint Slovak-Ukrainian environmental education campaign for two years aimed at highlighting the state of the environment and promoting the need to protect water resources in the border regions of Slovakia and Ukraine. 

Accordingly, the main goal of the Environment for the Future by Scientific Education - Work in Nature (EFFUSE-win) project is to develop environmental competencies and disseminate environmental knowledge about the state of nature and the need for its protection among residents of the cross-border regions of Slovakia and Ukraine, as well as to increase scientific competencies important for solving current environmental problems.

During the implementation of the planned project activities, aimed at the real connection of pupils and students with nature, field trainings, outdoor environmental education activities for university and school youth, field research by experts, the creation of laboratories in UzhNU as part of the LYS (Laboratories of Young Scientists) network, online events and trainings to be held in Slovakia will be implemented.

The results of the project research will be made public through the presentation of the results of monitoring the ecological state of cross-border areas and relevant scientific publications.

The project of the Geography Faculty team “Implementation of Monitoring of Wetlands of International Importance in the Carpathian Region” (WeVaRe), whose main partners are the Administration of the Polonyna National Park (Slovakia), the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca (Romania), the Administration of the Maramures Mountains Natural Park (Romania), and the Research Institute of Alpine Biology of the University of Zilina (Slovakia), promises to be no less effective.

The main objective of the project is to assess the current state of the environment, biodiversity of wetlands and their range, and develop a wetland monitoring system based on modern technologies and practices.

The main activities of the project include inventorying wetlands in the SK-RO-UA cross-border region and assessing the current state of the natural environment and biodiversity of these areas. To this end, an inventory of wetlands in the cross-border region of SK-RO-UA will be carried out and their condition will be determined, an instrumental analysis of the hydrological regime and climatic factors of wetland functioning will be carried out, respectively, snow measuring in wetland catchments in winter, hydrochemical analysis of water and soil and processing of monitoring data based on instrumental studies will be carried out. This will facilitate the implementation of a comprehensive system for monitoring and preventing wetland pollution based on modern technologies and practices.

Thanks to the work done and the results obtained, it will also be possible to develop a landscape map of the wetlands territory indicating the centers of erosion, landslide, landslide and other processes, to make an up-to-date assessment and geochemical analysis of the processes of wetland functioning and the location of pollutants (if any). In addition, in order to reduce the risks of natural disasters, monitoring of hazardous processes of wetland pollution in the cross-border region SK-RO-UA will be launched, and the emergence of sources of accidental air, water and soil pollution in the cross-border wetlands will be predicted in order to prevent their pollution. As part of this activity, a GIS and a joint innovative strategy for preventing environmental disasters will be created.

 

• International Activities