From wasteland to wetland: creating a community ecological resource from waste water in regional New South Wales

In areas where rivers have been altered and regulated through dams, the effect on wetland ecosystems can lead to 'wastage' of the land as natural systems are destroyed. In response to the effects of streamflow regulation on a wetland near the city of Albury, on the Murray River, the development of the Wonga Wetlands and associated site rehabilitation addresses two key issues: wasteland and waste water. A Community Advisory Committee has been actively and directly involved in the project, initiated and implemented by the Albury City Council, to restore an area of original wetland into a community ecological resource that utilises 100% of the domestic, commercial and industrial urban 'waste' water from the city's water treatment plant. This project represents a significant direction in the way communities and local governments approach resource recovery. This paper analyses the Wonga Wetlands project from the perspective of sustainable management of waste in terms of water resources and presents it as a model for community-based environmental application and long-term resource sustainability.     

Sustainable wetland management strategies under uncertainties

Wetlands are widely recognized as transitional areas between terrestrial and aquatic systems. They provide multifunctional benefits, most prominently relating to the ecosystem, the economy and to scenic quality. Extensive areas of wetlands have been lost, either as a direct result of redesignation for other uses, especially industrial and recreational, or by qualitative degradation arising from water pollution. Although researchers have been involved in prolonged debate over wetland sustainable use management issues, the uncertain substitutability and irreversibility factors surrounding wetland functions have rarely been addressed. In considering policies for wetland resource management, decision rules and procedures must be adapted to reflect those uncertainties. In this study, the author incorporates the concept of the safe minimum standard of conservation approach to take account of natural and social uncertainties attending public decisions. By this approach, not only is the role of uncertain substitutability and irreversibility prioritized in addressing wetland sustainable use management strategies, but related policy implications may also be considered.     

SIMULATING FLOW IN REGIONAL WETLANDS WITH THE MODFLOW WETLANDS PACKAGE1

ABSTRACT: As part of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP), various water supply projects have been proposed in a region located between the Miami metropolitan area and the extensive regional wetland systems that are part of the Everglades or remnant Everglades. A ground water flow model of the surficial aquifer within northern Miami‐Dade County was constructed using MODFLOW to evaluate the effects of these projects on water levels in the wetlands and the underlying surficial aquifer. The new Wetlands package was used to conjunctively simulate overland flow through these wetlands and the shallow ground water system. Comparisons of simulated to measured ground water levels and wetland stages were very satisfactory, where computed and measured water levels agreed within 0.5 ft over most of the period of record at nearly all of the monitoring sites. Temporal trends in water levels were also replicated. It was concluded that the assumptions and methodologies inherent to the Wetlands package were suitable for simulating regional wetland hydrology within the Everglades area.     

The use of constructed wetlands in the treatment of acid mine drainage

US government regulations require that all effluents from industrial operations, including mining, meet certain water quality standards. Constructed wetlands have proven to be useful in helping to attain those standards. Application of this biotechnology to mine water drainage can reduce water treatment costs and improve water quality in streams and rivers adversely affected by acidic mine water drainage from abandoned mines. Over 400 constructed wetland water treatment systems have been built on mined lands largely as a result of research by the US Bureau of Mines. Wetlands are passive biological treatment systems that are relatively inexpensive to construct and require minimal maintenance. Chemical treatment costs are reduced sufficiently to repay the cost of construction in less than a year. The mine waste water is typically treated in a series of excavated ponds that resemble small marsh areas. The ponds are engineered to facilitate bacterial oxidation of iron. Ideally, the water then flows through a composted organic substrate supporting a population of sulphate-reducing bacteria which raises the pH. Constructed wetlands in the USA are described - their history, functions, construction methodologies, applicabilities, limitations and costs.     

A Review of the Relative Merits of Conserving,Using, or Draining Papyrus Swamps

Wetlands are a vital resource, particularly in Africa where livelihoods are closely linked to natural capital. In recent years, extensive drainage has occurred to make way for agriculture. To gain insight into whether drainage is justified, we review the value of African wetlands dominated by Cyperus papyrus in relation to use, conservation and conversion. Evidence suggests that the value derived from low-intensity, multifunctional wetland use far exceeds the value derived from swamp reclamation and generally exceeds that of conservation. At a local level, the main driver of wetland misuse appear to be a breakdown in collaborative management regimes and the main constraint on wetland use, the value of labor and selling-times. Local drivers are linked to regional factors such as the lack of coordinated wetland policies and difficulties in ensuring that legislation is absorbed by all sectors of society. We highlight opportunities for ensuring more effective collaborative management and legislation communication, which capitalize on existing governance structures. In contrast to predictions by Hardin’s Tragedy of the Commons model, we argue that effective wetland management is best achieved by preventing privatization and promoting common property management regimes. We also argue that poverty and income inequity are more important drivers of unsustainable resource use than environmental managers commonly acknowledge.     

Efficacy of natural wetlands to retain nutrient, sediment and microbial pollutants

Wetlands can improve water quality through natural processes including sedimentation, nutrient transformations, and microbial and plant uptake. Tailwater from irrigated pastures may contribute to nonpoint source water pollution in the form of sediments, nutrients, and pathogens that degrade downstream water quality. We examined benefits to water quality provided by a natural, flow-through wetland and a degraded, channelized wetland situated within the flood-irrigation agricultural landscape of the Sierra Nevada foothills of Northern California. The non-degraded, reference wetland significantly improved water quality by reducing loads of total suspended sediments, nitrate, and Escherichia coli on average by 77, 60, and 68%, respectively. Retention of total N, total P, and soluble reactive P (SRP) was between 35 and 42% of loads entering the reference wetland. Retention of pollutant loads by the channelized wetland was significantly lower than by the reference wetland for all pollutants except SRP. A net export of sediment and nitrate was observed from the channelized wetland. Decreased irrigation inflow rates significantly improved retention efficiencies for nitrate, E. coli, and sediments in the reference wetland. We suggest that maintenance of these natural wetlands and regulation of inflow rates can be important aspects of a best management plan to improve water quality as water runs off of irrigated pastures.     

Wetland cultivation and hydrological management in eastern Africa: Matching community and hydrological needs through sustainable wetland use

Wetlands are critical natural resources in developing countries where they perform a range of environmental functions and provide numerous socio-economic benefits to local communities and a wider population. In recent years, however, many wetlands throughout eastern Africa have come under extreme pressure as government policies, socio-economic change and population pressure have stimulated a need for more agriculturally productive land. Although wetland drainage and cultivation can make a key contribution to food and livelihood security in the short term, in the long term there are concerns over the sustainability of this utilization and the maintenance of wetland benefits. This article draws upon recent research carried out in western Ethiopia, which addressed the sustainability of wetland agriculture in an area of increasing food insecurity and population pressure. It discusses the impacts of drainage and cultivation on wetland hydrology and draws attention to local wetland management strategies, particularly those characterized by multiple use of wetlands, where agriculture exists alongside other wetland uses. The article suggests that where multiple wetland uses exist, a range of benefits can be sustained with little evidence of environmental degradation. Ways of promoting and empowering such sustainable wetland management systems are discussed in the context of the wider need for water security throughout the region.     

Building Local Community Commitment to Wetlands Restoration: A Case Study of the Cache River Wetlands in Southern Illinois, USA

Natural resource professionals are increasingly faced with the challenges of cultivating community-based support for wetland ecosystem restoration. While extensive research efforts have been directed toward understanding the biophysical dimensions of wetland conservation, the literature provides less guidance on how to successfully integrate community stakeholders into restoration planning. Therefore, this study explores the social construction of wetlands locally, and community members’ perceptions of the wetland restoration project in the Cache River Watershed of southern Illinois, where public and private agencies have partnered together to implement a large-scale wetlands restoration project. Findings illustrate that the wetlands hold diverse and significant meanings to community members and that community members’ criteria for project success may vary from those identified by project managers. The case study provides managers with strategies for building community commitment such as engaging local citizens in project planning, minimizing local burdens, maximizing local benefits, and reducing uncertainty.     

Impact of riverine wetlands construction and operation on stream channel stability: Conceptual framework for geomorphic assessment

Wetland conservation is a critical environmental management issue. An emerging approach to this issue involves the construction of wetland environments. Because our understanding of wetlands function is incomplete and such projects must be monitored closely because they may have unanticipated impacts on ecological, hydrological, and geomorphological systems. Assessment of project-related impacts on stream channel stability is an important component of riverine wetlands construction and operation because enhanced erosion or deposition associated with unstable rivers can lead to loss of property, reductions in channel capacity, and degradation of water quality, aquatic habitat, and riparian aesthetics. The water/sediment budget concept provides a scientific framework for evaluating the impact of riverine wetlands construction and operation on stream channel stability. This concept is based on the principle of conservation of mass, i.e., the total amount of water and sediment moving through a specific reach of river must be conserved. Long-term measurements of channel sediment storage and other water/sediment budget components provide the basis for distinguishing between project-related impacts and those resulting from other causes. Changes in channel sediment storage that occur as a result of changes in internal inputs of water or sediment signal a project-related impact, whereas those associated with changes in upstream or tributary inputs denote a change in environmental conditions elsewhere in the watershed. A geomorphic assessment program based on the water/sediment budget concept has been implemented at the site of the Des Plaines River Wetlands Demonstration Projection near Chicago, Illinois, USA. Channel sediment storage changed little during the initial construction phase, suggesting that thus far the project has not affected stream channel stability.     

玻璃生产企业废水综合利用的可行性探讨

本文分析了玻璃生产企业废水的来源,并从耀华玻璃集团实施的废水治理项目的实际出发,阐述了废水经过治理后综合利用的途径,实现废水的零排放,减少环境污染,节约水资源。     

Developing sustainable water management scenarios by using thorough hydrologic analysis and environmental criteria

Wetlands constitute a significant source of life since they incorporate unique habitats with endemic and migrant species. They also contribute to the preservation of high global biodiversity and they are under protection according to EU legislation. Nevertheless, during the last century, significant degradation has been observed in wetlands, mainly due to intensification of agriculture and poor water management practices. Calcareous fens habitat with the endangered species Cladium mariscus and Carex spp. is an ecologically significant wetland that undergoes great ecological stresses globally, due to the irrational use of water resources. In Trichonis lake, Western Greece, this habitat has been under deterioration during the last 50 years due to the lack of a sustainable water management plan that has caused destabilization of the hydrologic balance and high water level fluctuations. This human induced hydrologic regime has led to seasonal shifting between drought and flooding which constitute unfavorable conditions for this fen habitat and as a result significant elimination of this ecosystem extent has occurred. This study has adopted technologically advanced scientific methods such as GIS applications and remote sensing techniques to quantify the existing water resources and formulate a sustainable management scheme by considering both anthropogenic water uses and environmental protection.     

秦皇岛市水环境现状与恢复

秦皇岛地区原始自然环境优越,多年来,不正当的人为活动、环境恶化趋势明显,也直接干扰与影响着水的良性循环。现状水环境:河流基流渐小,并季节性断流,坑塘减少,湿地萎缩水土流失,洪径增大。地下水位下降,水量减少,承压水无序开采,污净比失衡,河流承栽力降低。地下水垂直污染面扩大,点、面、垃圾污染源趋重。联通青一洋、石一起,实施水资源再分配。优化配置城乡用水。重视地下水源地建设,联合调度地表、地下水源。谨慎开发承压水。植树造林、涵养水分。注重防风林带建设,改善田间小气候。严控地下水采量,防止土壤旱化。搞好坑塘建设,解决乡镇污水出路与净化。保护湿地,促进水的良性循环。深度处理废污水.使之资源化。从源头抓好城市三大水源地污染源.察勘储备新地下水源地。改良恢复水环境,保障水资源循环利用。     

Using GIS to Identify Functionally Significant Wetlands in the Northeastern United States

/ Of the several automated wetland assessment methods currently available, none are comprehensive in considering all of the primary functions a wetland can perform. We developed a methodology particularly suited to the Northeastern United States that enumerates spatial predictors of wetland function for three primary wetland functions: flood flow alteration, surface water quality improvement, andwildlife habitat. Predictors were derived from several wetland assessment techniques and directly from the literature on wetland structure and function. The methodology was then automated using a Geographic Information System (GIS). The resulting Automated Assessment Method for Northeastern Wetlands (AMNEW) consists of a suite of eight Arc Macro Language (AML) programs that run in the ARC/INFO GRID module. Using remotely sensed land use information and digital elevation models (DEMs), AMNEW produces three separate grids of wetlands that perform each function. The method was tested on four watersheds in Vermont's Lake Champlain Basin. Results and preliminary verification indicate that the method can successfully identify those wetlands in the Northeastern region that have the potential to be functionally important.     

湖北石首天鹅洲湿地旅游资源综合评价

湿地是地球上水陆相互作用形成的独特生态系统,湿地评价能帮助人们更好地开发和利用湿地资源.通过采用多层次分析法(AHP),对湖北天鹅洲湿地旅游资源的价值进行分层、分权重的评价实践,探讨了一种定性与定量相结合的湿地评价方法,为天鹅洲湿地旅游资源的开发强度和可利用潜力提供指导.     

餐厨垃圾预处理工艺研究及现场应用

餐厨垃圾有机质含量大,具有较高的回收价值,资源化利用是发展的趋势,但是我国餐厨垃圾具有含水量大、杂物多、油脂提取难等特点,增加了处理的难度.研发一套餐厨垃圾预处理工艺,并对相关设备的结构尺寸进行了优化,形成了以精分选、高提油为特点的工艺技术,综合杂物拣出率达到95％以上,提油率达到98％以上.该工艺在光大国际宿迁100...     

Remote sensing and GIS for wetland inventory, mapping and change analysis

A multiple purpose wetland inventory is being developed and promoted through partnerships and specific analyses at different scales in response to past uncertainties and gaps in inventory coverage. A partnership approach is being promoted through the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands to enable a global inventory database to be compiled from individual projects and analyses using remote sensing and GIS. Individual projects that are currently part of this global effort are described. They include an analysis of the Ramsar sites' database to map the distribution of Ramsar sites across global ecoregions and to identify regions and wetland types that are under-represented in the database. Given the extent of wetland degradation globally, largely due to agricultural activities, specific attention is directed towards the usefulness of Earth Observation in providing information that can be used to more effectively manage wetlands. As an example, a further project using satellite data and GIS to quantify the condition of wetlands along the western coastline of Sri Lanka is described and trends in land use due to changes in agriculture, sedimentation and settlement patterns are outlined. At a regional scale, a project to map and assess, using remote sensing, individual wetlands used for agriculture in eight countries in southern Africa is also described. Land cover and the extent of inundation at each site is being determined from a multi-temporal data set of images as a base for further assessment of land use change. Integrated fully within these analyses is the development of local capacity to plan and undertake such analyses and in particular to relate the outcomes to wetland management and to compile data on the distribution, extent and condition of wetlands globally.     

HYDROGEOLOGIC EVALUATION OF WETLAND BASINS FOR LAND USE PLANNING1

ABSTRACT: Wetlands occur in a variety of geologic, hydrologic, and topographic settings and exhibit diverse hydrogeologic characteristics. A wetland is more than an organic mat - it is an element in a larger hydrogeologic system. Three distinct but related effects of wetlands are: modifying the character of runoff from a basin, influencing the discharge/recharge relationship with the underlying aquifer, and effecting the potential for ground water development in a wetland dominated basin. An important goal of wetland research is to define the diverse roles that wetlands play in the regional hydrology and to define the geologic, hydrologic, and topographic factors that will allow meaningful distinctions among wetlands. Geologic and hydrologic factors include character and thickness of surficial materials; bedrock type; hydrologic position; permeability of organic layer; transmissivity, quality, and hydrologic connection of wetland related aquifers; ground water outflow; and depth of standing water. Topographic factors are position in the drainage basin, relative size, and absolute size of wetlands. A wetland classification to aid hydrologists and land use planners is proposed using selected factors involving hydrologic position, topographic position, and geologic type.     

Nutrient processing capacity of a constructed wetland in western Ireland

In Ireland, constructed wetland systems are increasingly being used to perform tertiary treatment on municipal waste effluent from small towns and villages located in areas whose receiving waters are deemed sensitive. The bedrock formation in the west of Ireland is primarily karst limestone and where the overburden-soil cover is very shallow, such waters are highly sensitive to pollution sources, as little or no natural attenuation and/or treatment will occur. Constructed wetland technology has been seen to offer a relatively low-cost alternative to the more conventional tertiary treatment technologies, particularly when dealing with low population numbers in small rural communities. This paper examines the waste treatment performance, in terms of nutrient (P and N) reduction, of a recently constructed surface-flow wetland system at Williamstown, County Galway, Ireland. Performance evaluation is based on more than two years of water quality and hydrological monitoring data. The N and P mass balances for the wetland indicate that the average percentage reduction over the two-year study period is 51% for total N and 13% for total P. The primary treatment process in the wetland system for suspended solids (between 84 and 90% reduction), biological oxygen demand (BOD) (on average, 49% reduction), N, and P is the physical settlement of the particulates. However, the formation of algal bloom during the growing season reduces the efficiency of the total P removal.     

Analysis of the role of waste minimisation clubs in reducing industrial water demand in the UK

As a result of the UK Government's waste policy, which increasingly encourages sustainable development, and the realisation that water in the UK cannot be treated as an unlimited resource, there is growing interest in reducing the demand for water by industry. A series of industrial waste minimisation clubs have been set up within the country. This paper identifies the effectiveness of these clubs in reducing the demand for water. An overview of some of the clubs show how there is a major discrepancy between potential and implemented water savings, whilst a more detailed analysis of three specific examples show how water demand and cost to the company can be reduced, with the project paying for itself within around 1 year. It appears that companies are able to reduce water consumption by approximately 30%. If this level of saving was taken up by the entire industrial sector in England and Wales, water consumption could be reduced by approximately 1500 Ml/day. This reduction would be more significant in regions of lower rainfall, for example East Anglia and Southeast England.     

Sediment Contaminant Chemistry and Toxicity of Freshwater Urban Wetlands in Southern California1

Brown, Jeffrey S., Martha Sutula, Chris Stransky, John Rudolph, and Earl Byron, 2010. Sediment Contaminant Chemistry and Toxicity of Freshwater Urban Wetlands in Southern California. Journal of the American Water Resources Association (JAWRA) 46(2):367-384. DOI: 10.1111/j.1752-1688.2009.00407.x Abstract: Wetlands provide many critical functions in urban ecosystems, including habitat for wetland-dependent fauna and enhancement of water quality. Interest in restoring or creating wetlands to enhance these functions is increasing due to the scale and extent of wetland loss and water quality problems associated with urbanization. One of the most pressing questions associated with urban wetland restoration is the extent to which urban wetlands tend to concentrate contaminants, and if so, whether an associated risk to wildlife exists. The goal of this study was to better understand these potential risks, and the associated tradeoffs with using wetlands to treat urban runoff. Sediment toxicity, contaminant chemistry, and macroinvertebrate (MI) community metrics were measured in 21 southern California wetlands that receive urban runoff as their primary water source. MI organisms in 18 of the 21 urban wetlands examined were considered to be at risk due to sediment contaminant concentrations and toxicity. Most of the sites were either toxic to the amphipod Hyalella azteca, exceeded a sediment quality guideline, or both. Sediment chemistry and toxicity identification evaluation studies suggest that pyrethroid pesticides may have been responsible for much of the toxicity documented in this study. The mean Probable Effects Concentration quotient (an index of degree of sediment contamination) was found to negatively correlate with MI diversity in these wetlands suggesting that toxicity was affecting organisms at the base of the food chain in these wetlands.