The Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA) is an environmental research organisation which researches, monitors, assesses [1] and studies freshwater, [2] coastal and marine environments [3] and environmental technology. [4]
NIVA's areas of work include environmental contaminants, [5] [6] [7] biodiversity and climate related issues. NIVA's research reports can be accessed through BIBSYS, and all reports from 1956 until 2015 are available for download. Some of the more widely read articles are also made available by Sciencenordic.com and forskning.no (articles in Norwegian only). The institute has twelve sections, led by research managers: Aquaculture, Biodiversity, Innovation, International projects and cooperation, Chemicals, Effects of climate change, Laboratory services, Environmental contaminants, Environmental monitoring, Environmental technology and Measures against pollution.
In 2012 NIVA was in the news after its scientists developed a method of studying drug use in cities though analysis of sewage. [8] [9] [10]
NIVA was founded in 1958 and in 2015 is a non-profit research foundation. Its board is appointed by the Norwegian Ministry of the Environment, the Research Council of Norway and its employees. NIVA's Head Office is at the Oslo Innovation Centre in Oslo, with regional offices in Bergen, Grimstad and Hamar, as well as a large scale research facility in the Oslo Fjord. The organization is certified with ISO9001, and laboratory activities are accredited in accordance with ISO17025.
NIVA has about 200 employees. Two-thirds of these have educational backgrounds in water sciences and more than half work in research.
NIVA has several wholly and partly owned subsidiaries:
Eutrophication is a general term describing a process in which nutrients accumulate in a body of water, resulting in an increased growth of microorganisms that may deplete the water of oxygen. Although eutrophication is a natural process, manmade or cultural eutrophication is far more common and is a rapid process caused by a variety of polluting inputs including poorly treated sewage, industrial wastewater, and fertilizer runoff. Such nutrient pollution usually causes algal blooms and bacterial growth, resulting in the depletion of dissolved oxygen in water and causing substantial environmental degradation.
Water pollution is the contamination of water bodies, with a negative impact on their uses. It is usually a result of human activities. Water bodies include lakes, rivers, oceans, aquifers, reservoirs and groundwater. Water pollution results when contaminants mix with these water bodies. Contaminants can come from one of four main sources. These are sewage discharges, industrial activities, agricultural activities, and urban runoff including stormwater. Water pollution may affect either surface water or groundwater. This form of pollution can lead to many problems. One is the degradation of aquatic ecosystems. Another is spreading water-borne diseases when people use polluted water for drinking or irrigation. Water pollution also reduces the ecosystem services such as drinking water provided by the water resource.
The Norwegian University of Life Sciences is a public university located in Ås, Norway. It is located at Ås in Akershus and has around 7700 students.
Environmental technology (envirotech) is the use of engineering and technological approaches to understand and address issues that affect the environment with the aim of fostering environmental improvement. It involves the application of science and technology in the process of addressing environmental challenges through environmental conservation and the mitigation of human impact to the environment.
Marine pollution occurs when substances used or spread by humans, such as industrial, agricultural and residential waste, particles, noise, excess carbon dioxide or invasive organisms enter the ocean and cause harmful effects there. The majority of this waste (80%) comes from land-based activity, although marine transportation significantly contributes as well. It is a combination of chemicals and trash, most of which comes from land sources and is washed or blown into the ocean. This pollution results in damage to the environment, to the health of all organisms, and to economic structures worldwide. Since most inputs come from land, either via the rivers, sewage or the atmosphere, it means that continental shelves are more vulnerable to pollution. Air pollution is also a contributing factor by carrying off iron, carbonic acid, nitrogen, silicon, sulfur, pesticides or dust particles into the ocean. The pollution often comes from nonpoint sources such as agricultural runoff, wind-blown debris, and dust. These nonpoint sources are largely due to runoff that enters the ocean through rivers, but wind-blown debris and dust can also play a role, as these pollutants can settle into waterways and oceans. Pathways of pollution include direct discharge, land runoff, ship pollution, bilge pollution, atmospheric pollution and, potentially, deep sea mining.
The NILU – Norwegian Institute for Air Research or NILU is one of the leading specialized scientific laboratories in Europe researching issues related to air pollution, climate change and health. It is an independent nonprofit institution, established in 1969, staffed by scientists, engineers and technicians with specialized expertise for working on air pollution problems. The staff do more than two hundred projects annually for research councils, industries, international banks and local, national and international authorities and organizations. Its first director was Brynjulf Ottar.
Aquatic biomonitoring is the science of inferring the ecological condition of rivers, lakes, streams, and wetlands by examining the organisms that live there. While aquatic biomonitoring is the most common form of biomonitoring, any ecosystem can be studied in this manner.
Biological oceanography is the study of how organisms affect and are affected by the physics, chemistry, and geology of the oceanographic system. Biological oceanography may also be referred to as ocean ecology, in which the root word of ecology is Oikos (oικoσ), meaning ‘house’ or ‘habitat’ in Greek. With that in mind, it is of no surprise then that the main focus of biological oceanography is on the microorganisms within the ocean; looking at how they are affected by their environment and how that affects larger marine creatures and their ecosystem. Biological oceanography is similar to marine biology, but is different because of the perspective used to study the ocean. Biological oceanography takes a bottom-up approach, while marine biology studies the ocean from a top-down perspective. Biological oceanography mainly focuses on the ecosystem of the ocean with an emphasis on plankton: their diversity ; their productivity and how that plays a role in the global carbon cycle; and their distribution.
The North West Shelf Operational Oceanographic System (NOOS) monitors physical, sedimentological and ecological variables for the North Sea area. NOOS is operated by partners from the nine countries bordering the extended North Sea and European North West Shelf; Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and United Kingdom. Working collaboratively to develop and implement ocean observing systems in the area. Near real time and recent history sea levels are available to on their web site in map, graph or table format.
The Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS) is one of Europe's leading marine science research organisations, one of the oldest oceanographic organisations in the world and is Scotland's largest and oldest independent marine science organisation.
Knut Lehre Seip is professor in environmental management at Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway. Seip obtained his masters in physics at the University of Oslo, UiO, in 1969. He obtained his ph.D at UiO in 1992 with the thesis “Mathematical models of lake ecosystems.” Seip has served at several positions at Center for industrial research, SI / SINTEF. Professor Seip held the first chair in Environmental management in Norway, at Telemark University College 1994-2000, then he became professor and head of Research and Management at Oslo University College. From 2011 he has been professor and vice dean for research and development at the Faculty of technology, arts and design at Oslo and Akershus University College of applied Sciences. He is the son of the Norwegian historian Jens Arup Seip.
Nord University is a state university in the Nordland and Trøndelag counties of Norway. The university has 11,000 students at study locations in Northern and Central Norway, with main campuses in Bodø, the capital of the county of Nordland, and Levanger, a university town located on the south shore of the Trondheim Fjord. Further campuses are located in Mo i Rana, Namsos, Nesna, Sandnessjøen, Steinkjer, Stjørdal, and Vesterålen.
Lindsay Margaret Laird was a British biologist who was influential in the development of the aquaculture of salmon and other fishes through her research, teaching and the books that she produced. She defined the standards for Organic Farmed Salmon, and introduced quality assurance labelling for farmed salmon.
CRIStin is the national research information system of Norway, and is owned by the Royal Ministry of Education and Research. CRIStin documents all scholarly publications by Norwegian researchers, and complements the BIBSYS database, which focuses on storage and retrieval of data pertaining to research, teaching and learning – historically metadata related to library resources. CRIStin is the first database of its kind worldwide.
Cecilie Mauritzen is a Norwegian physical oceanographer who studies connections between ocean currents and climate change.
Pollution in Korea has become diversified and serious due to rapid industrialization and urbanization since the 1960s. The causes of environmental pollution, both in South and North Korea, can be found in population growth, urban concentration, and industrial structure, similar to the rest of the world.
Sivasankaran Bijoy Nandan is a professor at the Department of Marine Biology, Microbiology & Biochemistry, School of Marine Sciences, Cochin University of Science & Technology (CUSAT). He currently appointed as Vice Chacellor of Kannur University and holds the office of the Dean, Faculty of Marine Sciences, Cochin University of Science and Technology. He is also syndicate and senate member of CUSAT. He was served as Head of the department, Department of Marine Biology, Microbiology and Biochemistry, CUSAT during 2019 - 2021 period. He has expertise in teaching, research, and development activities in the broad area of Aquatic Ecosystem Characterisation, Conservation, Restoration and Management, Carbon Dynamics & Community Ecology, Communities Ecology & Biology, Eco-toxicology and Biology of Polar Communities. Recently a new species of deep sea wood boring mollusc collected from eastern Arabian Sea named after Prof. Bijoy Nandan as Xylophaga nandani by team of Researchers from Brazil and India namely, Marcel Velásquez, P.R. Jayachandran & M. Jima. Recently, a crab species discovered along the Kerala coast was named Aniptumnus bijoyi in honor of Bijoy, as recognized by Hari, Hershey, and Mendoza in 2022.
The Research Organization for Earth Sciences and Maritime is one of Research Organizations under the umbrella of the National Research and Innovation Agency. It was founded on 1 September 2021 as Research Organization for Earth Sciences, transformation of Deputy I of Indonesian Institute of Sciences after the liquidation of LIPI into BRIN.