Next-gen sensors: Catching water pollution in real time
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Extreme weather events, such as floods, droughts and torrential rains, affect water quality in lakes, rivers and coastal areas. This creates significant challenges for ecosystems and water supplies because pesticides bound in soil can quickly leach into water sources. Now, researchers want to monitor this in a new way.
“Today’s monitoring systems aren’t equipped to detect rapid variations. This leaves critical gaps in environmental protection and public health preparedness. The goal of the project, called STARDUST, is to develop an optical sensor system that can detect multiple pesticides in real time in both surface water and groundwater,” says Elizaveta Vereshchagina, a senior research scientist in SINTEF’s Department of Smart Sensors and Microtechnology, Norway.
The technology will provide insight into how extreme weather affects the occurrence of pesticides in water. It is being developed with interdisciplinary collaborators from Norway, Romania, Poland, Ireland and Denmark.
Engaged citizens in Denmark and Ireland
When researchers want to examine water samples after heavy rainfall, they need to collect the samples immediately. This is logistically challenging. STARDUST has therefore engaged citizen scientists in Denmark and Ireland, who collect water samples during periods of significant rainfall.
These water samples are important for gaining insight into the connection between extreme weather conditions and water quality.
“We create references at our site and also have the samples sent to Oslo so that we can test our sensor technology in the laboratory. We’ve managed to measure different types of pesticides in water using SERS technology, which provides a fast response. The hope is that we can physically bring this type of sensor technology to water sources in the future,” says research colleague and project leader Karolina Milenko.
SERS stands for surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy. The method boosts light signals from molecules, making them easier to measure. SINTEF combines SERS with microfluidics, where samples flow through small, transparent channels. Together, these methods provide fast and accurate analysis in real time.
“It can be challenging to distinguish between different pesticides at low concentrations in our datasets, partly due to different backgrounds in the samples. In the STARDUST consortium, we have expertise that helps us achieve better sensitivity using artificial intelligence,” says Vereshchagina.
Rapid changes should be measured in real time
Sudden changes in water quality threaten both biodiversity and the safety of drinking water. Because it is challenging to measure the varied contents of water sources, the current solution is to transport water samples to the laboratory for testing. When natural disasters or extreme weather occur, such changes can happen very quickly, and monitoring should therefore take place in real time.
“Imagine a landslide in a river high in a valley. This landslide can quickly contaminate the water in the river, but it is difficult to measure. We hope our technology can provide real-time measurements, showing how different pesticides move with the water. This may also make it possible to implement preventive measures before contaminated water does too much damage,” says Hans-Jørgen Albrechtsen, a professor at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and partner in the project.
The project’s interdisciplinary consortium consists of experts in nanotechnology, photonics, micro- and nanofabrication, materials science, machine learning-based signal processing and environmental chemistry. One of the things that makes STARDUST unique is that measurements take place in miniature, on a very small microchip.
In the future, the researchers hope to develop a machine the size of a rolling suitcase that can be taken along and make measurements directly in rivers, groundwater and lakes.
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Norwegian University of Science and Technology
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Next-gen sensors: Catching water pollution in real time (2026, September 1)
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