Monitoring the water quality of the Chamberonne

The Chamberonne, which flows into Lake Geneva in the east of Lausanne, will be renaturalised over the next few years. The Ecotox Centre is helping to assess the ecotoxicological water quality of the river prior to renaturation. To determine the reference status, the Centre will ingestigate water and sediment samples from 10 sites using a battery of standardised bioassays. For the sediment samples, tests with ostracods and with nematodes are applied. In addition, the oligochaete index is used, which determines sediment quality based on the oligochaete communities. The quality of the water samples is examined with the combined algae test to detect herbicides and with the cell test ER-CALUX to detect estrogenic substances. The biological water and sediment quality serve as a reference condition to record the effect of renaturation.