The metropolitan area of Valencia, located in the Gulf of Valencia, is the most populated area of the Valencian Community. Its coasts present serious pollution problems, derived from urban and industrial discharges resulting from intense human and industrial activity. This problem requires control and monitoring mechanisms to assess water quality and enable decision-making.

Classically, water quality monitoring has been carried out on the basis of physicochemical criteria, such as pH, conductivity, etc., microbiological criteria, such as microbial counts and the presence of certain species catalogued as bioindicators using environmental indices such as AMBI or BENTIX. The disadvantage of this type of analysis is that they require time and qualified personnel to perform. Therefore, they are not suitable from the practical point of view of effective monitoring for a large number of samples that require a certain immediacy.

In recent years, due to lower sequencing costs, there has been a boom in omics techniques, such as metagenomics and metatranscriptomics, which allow a more automated analysis of a large number of samples, but require time and specialized personnel. In parallel, there are several studies that point to the use of enzymes as water quality monitoring systems because of their high sensitivity, selectivity and low cost. In addition, once characterized, they can be converted into tests that do not require technical knowledge to obtain the results.

Funding (IX. Grants to emerging research groups): 18000€.

Researchers:

- David Talens Perales (PI)

- Ana de Luis Maragrit

- Monica Diez Diaz

Execution period: 01/01/2023 - 31/12/2024