Clean Water, Biodiversity and Environment

Water pollution is global problem and more efficient and sustainable materials are needed for the treatment processes. Adsorbents are one potential option providing relatively simple process design and potential to recover valuable components from water. The topic for this project is to develop new adsorbents compositions containing geopolymers (amorphous aluminosilicates) as a matrix and for example biochar, chitosan, or bisphosphonates as added components. The work will consist of preparing and extensively characterizing the adsorbents as well as testing them for realistic water treatment scenarios. Thus, the goal is to develop new synergistic and practically feasible composite adsorbents and understand the linkage between their nano/microstructural features and performance in water treatment.

Related I4WORLD research theme: Clean Water, Biodiversity and Environment

Location of the position: Fibre and Particle Engineering (FPE)

Supervisors: Assist. Prof. Tero Luukkonen (FPE), Prof. Jouko Vepsäläinen (BioSO4, Chairman of the Board)

Partners: BioSO4 Oy

Environmental flow (EF) refers to the magnitude, timing, and quality of required water to sustain the impacted aquatic ecosystems. The EF terms are usually used for altered flow below dams and hydropower. In this research project, we will design the criteria for defining EF for the lakes in cold climates. The case studies are of two urban lakes in the North of Oulu Pyykösjärvi and kyivjärvi. The remote sensing and in-situ data will be assimilated for calibrating the lakes' water quality model. A scenario-based lake water quality analysis will be done based on different transferred flow magnitudes from the oulujoki in different timing patterns. Finally, we optimize the water-energy Nexus by applying dynamic programming to obtain the best scenario for the magnitude and timing of EF.

Related I4WORLD research theme: Clean Water, Biodiversity and Environment

Location of the position: Water, Energy, and Environmental Engineering (WE3)

Supervisors: Assoc Prof. Ali Torabi Haghighi (WE3) and Dr. Nasim Fazel (SYKE)

Partner: Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE) (Finland)

The world ore deposits have largely been mined, a current trend is mining poorer deposits and moving to areas earlier impassable or protected, typical in the Arctic. However, mining poor deposits may not be environment friendly, and the Arctic is especially vulnerable for environmental disturbance. Sustainable, passive water treatment methods are urgently needed. We have identified moss species that can uptake heavy metals with the aid of microbes, called phytoremediation. The doctoral researcher’s role is to visualize both microbial symbionts and metals in moss tissues by fluorescent protein tagging, fluorescent in situ hybridization, fluorescent, transmission and scanning electron microscopy. The goal is to develop efficient moss-microbe combinations for phytoremediation of mining wastewaters.

Related I4WORLD research theme: Clean Water, Biodiversity and Environment; Sustainable Industries and Production

Location of the position: Ecology and Genetics (EG)

Supervisors: prof. Anna-Maria Pirttilä, Dr. Janne Koskimäki (EG), Dr. Kaisa Lehosmaa (EG) and and Minna Männistö (Luke)

Partners: Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke)

We live in an era of massive environmental changes that strongly alter ecosystems and biodi-versity. The ecological impacts are evident in Finland where land use has heavily intensified during the past century and temperature rise is projected to be larger than closer to the equa-tor. Several technologies have emerged as efficient tools to support ecosystem monitoring and management. In this project, we will develop a novel approach combining satellite re-mote sensing imagery, environmental DNA (eDNA; from plant material, air, etc.) and machine learning. We will investigate spatiotemporal patterns of biodiversity change in forest and peatland ecosystems in Finland during the past 40 years. The research helps to guide climate risk management and land use practices in peatlands and forests.

Related I4WORLD research themes: Clean Water, Biodiversity and Environment; Sustainable Industries and Production

Location of the position: Ecology and Genetics (EG)

Supervisors: Ass. Prof. Stefan Prost (EG), Senior curator Marko Mutanen (EG) and Senior Scientist Aleksi Räsänen (Luke).

Partners: Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke)

Being able to read and monitor biodiversity is severely hindered by the realities that most species remain un-described and identification of others is inefficient and inaccurate based on classical tools and due to shortage of species experts. Unprecedented rapid development of genomics technologies during the last years has opened new avenues for efficient survey and monitory of biodiversity as well as automated identification and standardized delimitation of species. The doctoral research will focus of developing and/or testing novel high-throughput DNA sequencing tools and approaches to find solutions to the prevailing predicament rendering us largely bio-illiterate, and therefore to help the humankind to overcome the biodiversity crisis.

Related I4WORLD research theme: Clean Water, Biodiversity and Environment

Location of the position: Ecology and Genetics (EG)

Supervisors: Senior curator Marko Mutanen (EG), Ass. professor. Stefan Prost (EG) and Prof. Niklas Wahlberg (Lund University)

Partners: Lund University (Sweden)