This paper concerns to the air and soil pollution in the area of tailings ponds in Moldova Nouă, situated on Danube bank, near the Romania-Serbia border. The tailings ponds resulted from mining operations since the previous century, represent now a source of historical pollution in the area, especially on air quality, through dispersal of tailings dust on large surfaces. Depending on weather conditions, especially in case of drought periods, the wind of various intensities raises the dust and disperses it, affecting land surfaces: urban, tourist, agricultural, protected areas of community interest, like RAMSAR Iron Gates Natural Park-Divici-Pojejena Wetland. The dispersion has a direct effect on human health because of its chemical composition, which may contain SiO2 and heavy metals like Cu, Pb, Cd, Ni, etc. Results were obtained following several field measurements of dust particles concentrations at various critical points, in corroboration with laboratory analyses of their content. For the study of the pollutants dispersion, the Breeze AERMOD model was used for obtaining cross-border pollution maps, respectively of the historical pollution by the accumulation of heavy metals in the soil from the immediate vicinity of the analysed area.

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Over the years, to maintain navigation along the Danube, the implementation of a series of hydrotechnical works was imposed in order to ensure the continuity of economic activities. Between 2011 and 2014, one such project was built in the vicinity of the county of Braila, on a secondary branch of the Danube - The Caleia branch. The main goal was to redistribute water discharge from the secondary channel to the main branch by construction of a bottom sill. The bottom sill and subsequent discharge redistribution led to hydrodynamic alterations caused by increased water current velocities. These modifications of the hydrodynamic regime may affect the migration of anadromous sturgeon species that swim from the Black Sea to spawn upstream, therefore making the monitoring of the impact paramount. Considering the fact that the anadromous migrating species are internationally protected species, by a series of agreements and conventions, and that the stocks of the species are still in decline, a complex monitoring program was implemented in the affected area. This study presents important information regarding the site utilization during spawning migration and an evaluation of the behavior of sturgeons tagged with ultrasonic transmitters that migrated upstream over the bottom sill. During the monitoring period, the studies show that five sturgeons passed the bottom sill during their upstream migration, swimming against maximum water current velocities of 2.5 m/s.

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