A synoptic survey of select wastewater-tracer compounds and the pesticide imidacloprid in Florida’s ambient freshwaters

Current wastewater treatment technologies do not remove many unregulated hydrophilic compounds, and there is growing interest that low levels of these compounds, referred to as emerging contaminants, may impact human health and the environment. A probabilistic-designed monitoring network was employed to infer the extent of Florida’s ambient freshwaters containing the wastewater (Includes reuse water, septic systems leachate, and wastewater treatment effluent.) indicators sucralose, acetaminophen, carbamazepine, and primidone and those containing the widely used pesticide imidacloprid. Extent estimates with 95% confidence bounds are provided for canals, rivers, streams, small and large lakes, and unconfined aquifers containing ultra-trace concentrations of these compounds as based on analyses of 2015 sample surveys utilizing 528 sites. Sucralose is estimated to occur in greater than 50% of the canal, river, stream, and large lake resource extents. The pharmaceuticals acetaminophen, carbamazepine, and primidone are most prevalent in rivers, with approximately 30% of river kilometers estimated to contain at least one of these compounds. Imidacloprid is estimated to occur in 50% or greater of the canal and river resource extents, and it is the only compound found to exceed published toxicity or environmental effects standards. Geospatial analyses show sucralose detection frequencies within Florida’s drainage basins to be significantly related to the percentage of urban land use (R²?=?0.36, p?<?0.001), and imidacloprid detection frequencies to be significantly related to the percentage of urban and agricultural land use (R²?=?0.47, p?<?0.001). The extent of the presence of these compounds highlights the need for additional emerging contaminant studies especially those examining effects on aquatic biota.     

Research priorities for managing the impacts and dependencies of business upon food,energy, water and the environment

Delivering access to sufficient food, energy and water resources to ensure human wellbeing is a major concern for governments worldwide. However, it is crucial to account for the ‘nexus’ of interactions between these natural resources and the consequent implications for human wellbeing. The private sector has a critical role in driving positive change towards more sustainable nexus management and could reap considerable benefits from collaboration with researchers to devise solutions to some of the foremost sustainability challenges of today. Yet opportunities are missed because the private sector is rarely involved in the formulation of deliverable research priorities. We convened senior research scientists and influential business leaders to collaboratively identify the top forty questions that, if answered, would best help companies understand and manage their food-energy-water-environment nexus dependencies and impacts. Codification of the top order nexus themes highlighted research priorities around development of pragmatic yet credible tools that allow businesses to incorporate nexus interactions into their decision-making; demonstration of the business case for more sustainable nexus management; identification of the most effective levers for behaviour change; and understanding incentives or circumstances that allow individuals and businesses to take a leadership stance. Greater investment in the complex but productive relations between the private sector and research community will create deeper and more meaningful collaboration and cooperation.     

Integrating Environmental and Socio-Economic Indicators of a Linked Catchment–Coastal System Using Variable Environmental Intensity

Can we develop land use policy that balances the conflicting views of stakeholders in a catchment while moving toward long term sustainability? Adaptive management provides a strategy for this whereby measures of catchment performance are compared against performance goals in order to progressively improve policy. However, the feedback loop of adaptive management is often slow and irreversible impacts may result before policy has been adapted. In contrast, integrated modelling of future land use policy provides rapid feedback and potentially improves the chance of avoiding unwanted collapse events. Replacing measures of catchment performance with modelled catchment performance has usually required the dynamic linking of many models, both biophysical and socio-economic—and this requires much effort in software development. As an alternative, we propose the use of variable environmental intensity (defined as the ratio of environmental impact over economic output) in a loose coupling of models to provide a sufficient level of integration while avoiding significant effort required for software development. This model construct was applied to the Motueka Catchment of New Zealand where several biophysical (riverine water quantity, sediment, E. coli faecal bacteria, trout numbers, nitrogen transport, marine productivity) models, a socio-economic (gross output, gross margin, job numbers) model, and an agent-based model were linked. An extreme set of land use scenarios (historic, present, and intensive) were applied to this modelling framework. Results suggest that the catchment is presently in a near optimal land use configuration that is unlikely to benefit from further intensification. This would quickly put stress on water quantity (at low flow) and water quality (E. coli). To date, this model evaluation is based on a theoretical test that explores the logical implications of intensification at an unlikely extreme in order to assess the implications of likely growth trajectories from present use. While this has largely been a desktop exercise, it would also be possible to use this framework to model and explore the biophysical and economic impacts of individual or collective catchment visions. We are currently investigating the use of the model in this type of application.     

Evaluating the efficacy of wood shreds for mitigating erosion

An erosion control product made by shredding on-site woody materials was evaluated for mitigating erosion through a series of rainfall simulations. Tests were conducted on bare soil and soil with 30, 50, and 70% cover on a coarse and a fine-grained soil. Results indicated that the wood product known as wood shreds reduced runoff and soil loss from both soil types. Erosion mitigation ranged from 60 to nearly 100% depending on the soil type and amount of concentrated flow and wood shred cover. Wood shreds appear to be a viable alternative to agricultural straw. A wood shred cover of 50% appears optimal, but the appropriate coverage rate will depend on the amount of expected concentrated flow and soil type.     

Zoning and the Tasmanian commercial rock lobster fishery

In this paper, the island of Tasmania is considered as a government jurisdiction. Management at this scale can conflict with sustainability in local environments. The case used to make this argument is the Tasmanian commercial rock lobster fishery. Within this fishery, Tasmania-wide management paradoxically intensifies differences at the same time as it effaces them. These differences contrast with Tasmania-wide management claims regarding sustainability. Actor-network theory is used to help approach these tensions. Zoning the fishery is put forward as a way to take into account differences to produce sustainable local outcomes.     

Landscape metrics and estuarine sediment contamination in the mid-Atlantic and southern New England regions

In a previously published study, quantitative relationships were developed between landscape metrics and sediment contamination for 25 small estuarine systems within Chesapeake Bay. These analyses have been extended to include 75 small estuarine systems across the mid-Atlantic and southern New England regions of the USA. Because of the different characteristics and dynamics of the estuaries across these regions, adjustment for differing hydrology, sediment characteristics, and sediment origins were included in the analysis. Multiple linear regression with stepwise selection was used to develop statistical models for sediment metals, organics, and total polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). The landscape metrics important for explaining the variation in sediment metals levels (R2 = 0.72) were the percent area of nonforested wetlands (negative contribution), percent area of urban land, and point source effluent volume and metals input (positive contributions). The metrics important for sediment organics levels (R2 = 0.5) and total PAHs (R2 = 0.46) were percent area of urban land (positive contribution) and percent area of nonforested wetlands (negative contribution). These models included silt-clay content (metals) or total organic C (organics, total PAHs) of sediments and grouping by estuarine hydrology, suggesting the importance of sediment characteristics and hydrology in mitigating the influence of the landscape metrics on sediment contamination levels. The overall results from this study are indicative of how statistical models can be developed relating landscape metrics to estuarine sediment contamination for distributions of land cover and point source discharges.     

Characterizing a Major Urban Stream Restoration Project: Nine Mile Run (Pittsburgh,Pennsylvania, USA)

Urban stream restoration continues to be used as an ecological management tool, despite uncertainty about the long‐term sustainability and resilience of restored systems. Evaluations of restoration success often focus on specific instream indicators, with limited attention to the wider basin or parallel hydrologic and geomorphic process. A comprehensive understanding of urban stream restoration progress is particularly important for comparisons with nonurban sites as urban streams can provide substantial secondary benefits to urban residents. Here, we utilize a wide range of indicators to retrospectively examine the restoration of Nine Mile Run, a multi‐million dollar stream restoration project in eastern Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania, USA). Examination of available continuous hydrological data illustrates the high cost of failures to incorporate the data into planning and adaptive management. For example, persistent extreme flows drive geomorphic degradation threatening to reverse hydrologic connections created by the restoration and impact the improved instream biotic communities. In addition, human activities associated with restoration efforts suggest a positive feedback as the stream restoration has focused effort on the basin beyond the reach. Ultimately, urban stream restoration remains a potentially useful management tool, but continued improvements in post‐project assessment should include examination of a wider range of indicators.     

Desorption of arsenic from drinking water distribution system solids

Previous work has shown that arsenic can accumulate in drinking water distribution system (DWDS) solids (Lytle et~al., 2004) when arsenic is present in the water. The release of arsenic back into the water through particulate transport and/or chemical release (e.g. desorption, dissolution) could result in elevated arsenic levels at the consumers' tap. The primary objective of this work was to examine the impact of pH and orthophosphate on the chemical release (i.e. desorption) of arsenic from nine DWDS solids collected from utilities located in the Midwest. Arsenic release comparisons were based on the examination of arsenic and other water quality parameters in leach water after contact with the solids over the course of 168~hours. Results showed that arsenic was released from solids and suggested that arsenic release was a result of desorption rather than dissolution. Arsenic release generally increased with increasing initial arsenic concentration in the solid and increasing pH levels (in the test range of 7 to 9). Finally, orthophosphate (3 and 5 mg PO₄/L) increased arsenic release at all pH values examined. Based on the study results, utilities with measurable levels of arsenic present in their water should be aware that some water quality changes can cause arsenic release in the DWDS potentially resulting in elevated levels at the consumer's tap.