Internet Distance Education Program – Water Technology and Water Resources Protection Ján Derco, Miloslav Drtil, Igor Bodík, Miroslav Hutňan Department of Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Chemical and Food Technology SUT, Radlinského 9, 812 37 Bratislava 1, Slovak Republic derco@chtf.stuba.sk Abstract The Ministry of Education of the Slovak Republic has accredited the course on Water Technology and Water Resources Protection. The competence to aware a certification of obtained education with the national validity has resulted from the accreditation. An online version of this course is being prepared as continuing education type of course. It is designated to professionals who firmly know about their field of interests. The preparation of online version is financially supported by Open Society Foundation. Learning environment is prepared in cooperation with the Slovak Centre for Distance Education. 1. Introduction The preparation of the course was motivated by actual state of drinking water supply, sewerage, wastewater treatment and protection of water resources in Slovakia as well as demands in these areas. According the Green report [1] only 55.2 % of the total population in Slovakia is served by sewerage. Approximately only 17.0 % of settlements are connected to the public sewerage systems. The development of sewerage is behind the development of public water system networks by 28.5 %. Treatment of municipal wastewater does not exist in 108 municipalities with a public sewerage system (from totally 490 municipalities connected to public sewerage system) and wastewater is discharged directly to the recipients and thus pollutes water resources. In 76 % of total number of municipalities with a public water supply system there is not a subsequent drainage and treatment of communal wastewater. From the evaluation of residual pollution discharged from sewerage systems to recipients it follows that about 34 % of discharged organic pollution in term of BOD 5 exceeds concentration limit prescribed in the Slovak Government Decree No. 242/1993 [2] for the time level up to end of 2004. The extension of wastewater pollution indicators to nitrogen and phosphorus [2, 3] initiated the requirement to upgrade the majority of present wastewater treatment plants in Slovakia. An approximation of our legislation on water quality to the European legislation has started an amendment of our previous legislation also in this field. The innovative item of the Water Framework Directive [4] is an integrated approach to water quality management. Dual approach to water pollution control by applying of emission and immision limits has been established. Decisive role in an implementation of the systematic approach to water resources protection belongs to wastewater and sludge treatment. The new effluent standards for wastewater discharge in our country have been established in accordance to Council Directive 91/271/EEC [4] in Slovak Government Decree No. 491/2003 [3]. According to new legislation and present state in the field of water protection the application of new and progressive treatment processes and technologies are inevitable. The extension of biological processes from organic compounds removal to nitrogen and phosphorus removal has strongly impacted a biological system configuration. Consequently, design, operation and control of treatment processes have also significantly increased in complexity. An online version of the above titled course is prepared as continuing education type of course. It is designated to professionals who firmly know about their field of interests. Online mode creates for them an opportunity to innovate and to extend their knowledge in the topic, combining learning and work, learning anywhere and anytime. 2. Learning objective The aim of the Internet Distance Education Programme course is to provide state of the art knowledge in the field of wastewater and sludge treatment processes and technologies as a decisive tool for water resources protection. Treatment processes design, operation and control as well as computer elaboration of kinetic and operational data and mathematical simulations are included.