In accordance with the schedule of work under the Agreement between SRI AEROKOSMOS and FSBSI MHI “Development of methods and creation of an experimental sample of a system for monitoring of anthropogenic effects on the shelf zones of the Black Sea coast of the Russian Federation, including Crimea, based on satellite and contact data” within the framework of Federal special purpose program “Research and development in priority areas of development of the scientific and technological complex of Russia for 2014–2020”, (the unique identifier of the project RFMFI57714X0110, the code “Diagnostics”), the expedition on R/V Biryuza was carried out.

The aims of the expedition were as follows:

• development of methods for measuring the marine environment characteristics for the operational support of the monitoring system with contact data;
• survey of the studied area for mapping the background characteristics of the marine environment;
• detection of submerged jets of sewage or fronts on the sewage water boundary, measurement of their physical, chemical and microbiological characteristics and study of their dynamics.

To achieve these aims, the scientific teams had the following tasks:

The Hydrology team tasks

• obtaining experimental data on the vertical distribution of temperature and salinity of sea water;
• obtaining experimental data on the spatial-temporal structure of the velocity of currents in the studied area;
• obtaining experimental data on temperature, salinity and current velocity in the area of sewage water propagation.

The Hydrochemistry team tasks

• obtaining data to study the features of the structure of the fields of oxygen, phosphate, silicic acid, nitrite, nitrate, ammonium, total inorganic carbon, alkalinity, pH and total suspension in the Herakleian Peninsula in the summer of 2015.;
• obtaining data to study the structure features of heavy metal content fields in bottom sediments in the area of the Herakleian Peninsula in the summer period of 2015;
• obtaining experimental data on anomalies of chemical characteristics in the field of sewage water propagation;
• provision of water samples from the coastal microbiology team to accomplish the aims of the expedition.

The Turbulence team tasks

• carrying out experimental studies of small-scale hydrophysical characteristics of the upper layer of the sea in the transitional zone marine-coastal part of the Sevastopol region, obtaining data for calculating the vertical turbulent diffusion coefficient, buoyancy frequency, for analyzing the spatial distribution of exchange coefficients in the transition zone and identifying features due to geomorphological and hydrological characteristics of the region;
• obtaining experimental data on anomalies of the characteristics of turbulence in the sewage water distribution.

The Sea Optics Department team tasks

• development of optical measurement techniques;
• carrying out a survey to obtain background optical characteristics in the study area;
• detection of sewage submerged jets or fronts by optical measurements;
• obtaining general ideas about the structure of fields of optical characteristics in the field of pollution and their optical contrasts with respect to background fields.

The works were carried out within the 5-mile coastal zone (in accordance with the capabilities of R/V Biryuza) in the area of the Herakleian Peninsula. To fulfil the tasks, two stages of work were carried out: reconnaissance of emission areas in the first stage (three days) and work on a large-scale grid of stations in the detected emission zone in the second stage (two days).

At each station, using the GAP-16 complexes, the seawater temperature and salinity was measured. Water sampling was carried out using an autonomous cassette of BA-3 bathometers. At all oceanographic stations, three components of the current velocity were measured using an ADCP acoustic meter.

The pH meter I-120 was used to determine the pH value in the cruise.

To study the small-scale hydrophysical characteristics of the upper layer of the sea, the Sigma-1 measuring complex (probing variant) was used.

A nine-channel meter for the directional light attenuation and a standard white disk to measure the relative transparency of water were used by the Hydrooptics team.