Students:Monika Bosilj

1. I'm a Master student of Chemistry at University of Maribor. Beside chemistry, I am also very interested in photography and exploring new places, ideas and opinions... I adore skiing on nearby hills/mountains and long walks with my dog. During these six months I've learned a lot about sustainable development of hydropower. At the Spring School I would like to learn about other groups topics like geoconversation, climate adaptions, waste management...I would also like to deepen the knowladge about hydropower plants. 2. UMANOTERA's PROJECTS Plan B - Initiative for a Sustainable Development Project Plan B is a network of Slovenian environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and experts, forming a broad civil society platform for sustainable development in Slovenia, along with other interested stakeholders. The primary objective of the NGO network within Plan B is to support long-term sustainable operation of environmental NGOs and to strengthen the qualification of environmental NGOs in Slovenia in two ways: by encouraging their active role in the democratic processes of policy formulation and in monitoring implementation of policies, and also by encouraging their participation and partnership. A secondary objective of the project is to improve the awareness of citizens and to encourage their engagement in environmentally-oriented public matters (http://www.umanotera.si/index.php?node=3).

The most interesting topic for me was a visit to Stechovice hydropower station on the river Vltava. Stechovice is one of the important hydro power plants of the Vltava cascade. Explanation and introduction about how it works, about turbines… was really interesting for me. I finished Bachelor degree in chemical engineering and I became interested in hydropower, therefore I found introduction of a hydro power plant as a construction plant a good topic. I was fascinating when our guide, a veteran employee of Stechovice hydro power plant, explained us, how they used cooling water that was coming from the hydropower plant for a swimming pool complex. Interesting was also a short film about hydropower stations and how they produce electricity. Special topic of the film was about flooding in the year 2002. Stechovice plant was completely damaged in that year. After two years of repairs at all affected hydro power plants were finished in year 2004. Regarding to my current study, which is chemistry, I can not directly connect hydropower plant to it. But definitely for my future work I want to focus more on protection and improvement of the status of surface waters, as well as aquatic ecosystems.