Disinfection by-product formation potential in response to variability in dissolved organic matter and nutrient inputs: Insights from a mesocosm study.

Changes in rainfall patterns driven by climate change affect the transport of dissolved organic matter (DOM) and nutrients through runoff to freshwater systems. This presents challenges for drinking water providers. DOM, which is a heterogeneous mix of organic molecules, serves as a critical precursor for disinfection by-products (DBPs) which are associated with adverse health effects.

Process-based modeling for ecosystem service provisioning: Non-linear responses to restoration efforts in a quarry lake under climate change.

Healthy freshwater ecosystems can provide vital ecosystem services (ESs), and this capacity may be hampered due to water quality deterioration and climate change. In the currently available ES modeling tools, ecosystem processes are either absent or oversimplified, hindering the evaluation of impacts of restoration measures on ES provisioning. In this study, we propose an ES modeling tool that integrates lake physics, ecology and service provisioning into a holistic modeling framework.

Global increase in methane production under future warming of lake bottom waters.

Lakes are significant emitters of methane to the atmosphere, and thus are important components of the global methane budget. Methane is typically produced in lake sediments, with the rate of methane production being strongly temperature dependent. Local and regional studies highlight the risk of increasing methane production under future climate change, but a global estimate is not currently available.

Cross-continental importance of CH emissions from dry inland-waters.

Despite substantial advances in quantifying greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from dry inland waters, existing estimates mainly consist of carbon dioxide (CO) emissions. However, methane (CH) may also be relevant due to its higher Global Warming Potential (GWP). We report CH emissions from dry inland water sediments to i) provide a cross-continental estimate of such emissions for different types of aquatic systems (i.

Forecasting water temperature in lakes and reservoirs using seasonal climate prediction.

Seasonal climate forecasts produce probabilistic predictions of meteorological variables for subsequent months. This provides a potential resource to predict the influence of seasonal climate anomalies on surface water balance in catchments and hydro-thermodynamics in related water bodies (e.g.

Phenological shifts in lake stratification under climate change.

One of the most important physical characteristics driving lifecycle events in lakes is stratification. Already subtle variations in the timing of stratification onset and break-up (phenology) are known to have major ecological effects, mainly by determining the availability of light, nutrients, carbon and oxygen to organisms. Despite its ecological importance, historic and future global changes in stratification phenology are unknown.

Hidden treasures: Human-made aquatic ecosystems harbour unexplored opportunities.

Artificial water bodies like ditches, fish ponds, weirs, reservoirs, fish ladders, and irrigation channels are usually constructed and managed to optimize their intended purposes. However, human-made aquatic systems also have unintended consequences on ecosystem services and biogeochemical cycles. Knowledge about their functioning and possible additional ecosystem services is poor, especially compared to natural ecosystems.

River pollution by priority chemical substances under the Water Framework Directive: A provisional pan-European assessment.

In this paper, we build a preliminary inventory of dissolved phase water emissions of 36 of the 45 chemical priority substances under the European Union's Water Framework Directive. For point sources, we consider the European Pollutant Release and Transfer Register (E-PRTR) containing reported emissions from major industrial facilities. We consider all other sources as diffuse, and we estimate European average chemical emission factors from available measurements of dissolved phase concentrations, assuming simple emission patterns such as population and agricultural land.

A European Multi Lake Survey dataset of environmental variables, phytoplankton pigments and cyanotoxins.

Under ongoing climate change and increasing anthropogenic activity, which continuously challenge ecosystem resilience, an in-depth understanding of ecological processes is urgently needed. Lakes, as providers of numerous ecosystem services, face multiple stressors that threaten their functioning. Harmful cyanobacterial blooms are a persistent problem resulting from nutrient pollution and climate-change induced stressors, like poor transparency, increased water temperature and enhanced stratification.

Effects of human-driven water stress on river ecosystems: a meta-analysis.

Human appropriation of water resources may induce water stress in freshwater ecosystems when ecosystem needs are not met. Intensive abstraction and regulation cause river ecosystems to shift towards non-natural flow regimes, which might have implications for their water quality, biological structure and functioning. We performed a meta-analysis of published studies to assess the potential effects of water stress on nutrients, microcontaminants, biological communities (bacteria, algae, invertebrates and fish), and ecosystem functions (organic matter breakdown, gross primary production and respiration).

Temperature Effects Explain Continental Scale Distribution of Cyanobacterial Toxins.

Insight into how environmental change determines the production and distribution of cyanobacterial toxins is necessary for risk assessment. Management guidelines currently focus on hepatotoxins (microcystins). Increasing attention is given to other classes, such as neurotoxins (e.

Abundance of antibiotic resistance genes and bacterial community composition in wild freshwater fish species.

This study was aimed to determine the abundance of four antibiotic resistance genes (bla, ermB, qnrS and sulI), as well as bacterial community composition associated with the intestinal mucus of wild freshwater fish species collected from the Foix and La Llosa del Cavall reservoirs, which represent ecosystems with high and low anthropogenic disturbance, respectively. Water and sediments from these reservoirs were also collected and analyzed to determine the pollution level by antibiotics. The bla gene was only detected in brown trout and Ebro barbel, which were collected from La Llosa del Cavall reservoir.

Abundance and Co-Distribution of Widespread Marine Archaeal Lineages in Surface Sediments of Freshwater Water Bodies across the Iberian Peninsula.

Archaea inhabiting marine and freshwater sediments have a relevant role in organic carbon mineralization, affecting carbon fluxes at a global scale. Despite current evidences suggesting that freshwater sediments largely contribute to this process, few large-scale surveys have been addressed to uncover archaeal diversity and abundance in freshwater sedimentary habitats. In this work, we quantified and high-throughput sequenced the archaeal 16S rRNA gene from surficial sediments collected in 21 inland waterbodies across the Iberian Peninsula differing in typology and trophic status.

Automatic High Frequency Monitoring for Improved Lake and Reservoir Management.

Recent technological developments have increased the number of variables being monitored in lakes and reservoirs using automatic high frequency monitoring (AHFM). However, design of AHFM systems and posterior data handling and interpretation are currently being developed on a site-by-site and issue-by-issue basis with minimal standardization of protocols or knowledge sharing. As a result, many deployments become short-lived or underutilized, and many new scientific developments that are potentially useful for water management and environmental legislation remain underexplored.

Effects of subinhibitory ciprofloxacin concentrations on the abundance of qnrS and composition of bacterial communities from water supply reservoirs.

We used a short-term microcosm approach to investigate the influence of two different subinhibitory concentrations of ciprofloxacin (0.01 and 0.1 μg/ml) on both the abundance of a plasmid-mediated quinolone resistance determinant (qnrS) and the structure and composition of bacterial communities from impaired and pristine water supply reservoirs.

Emission factor estimation of ca. 160 emerging organic microcontaminants by inverse modeling in a Mediterranean river basin (Llobregat, NE Spain).

Starting from measured river concentrations, emission factors of 158 organic compounds out of 199 analyzed belonging to different groups of priority and emerging contaminants [pesticides (25), pharmaceuticals and hormones (81), perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) (18), industrial compounds (12), drugs of abuse (8) and personal care products (14)] have been estimated by inverse modeling. The Llobregat river was taken as case study representative of Mediterranean rivers. Industrial compounds and pharmaceuticals are the dominant groups (range of 10(4) mg·1000 inhab(-1)·d(-1)).

Distribution of dissolved organic matter in freshwaters using excitation emission fluorescence and Multivariate Curve Resolution.

Multivariate Curve Resolution Alternating Least Squares (MCR-ALS) method with the trilinearity constraint is proposed for the analysis of excitation-emission fluorescence data from Dissolved Organic Matter (DOM) in fresh water natural systems, and the results obtained are compared with those obtained with PARAFAC. The effects of different number of components and constraints on the stability of the proposed models are compared. MCR-ALS is shown to be an effective way to characterize and resolve DOM sources in natural fresh water systems from EEM data, with good correlation with experimentally measured DOM concentration values.

Assessment of the water supply:demand ratios in a Mediterranean basin under different global change scenarios and mitigation alternatives.

Spatial differences in the supply and demand of ecosystem services such as water provisioning often imply that the demand for ecosystem services cannot be fulfilled at the local scale, but it can be fulfilled at larger scales (regional, continental). Differences in the supply:demand (S:D) ratio for a given service result in different values, and these differences might be assessed with monetary or non-monetary metrics. Water scarcity occurs where and when water resources are not enough to meet all the demands, and this affects equally the service of water provisioning and the ecosystem needs.

Modelling the emerging pollutant diclofenac with the GREAT-ER model: application to the Llobregat River Basin.

The present research aims at giving an insight into the increasingly important issue of water pollution due to emerging contaminants. In particular, the source and fate of the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug diclofenac have been analyzed at catchment scale for the Llobregat River in Catalonia (Spain). In fact, water from the Llobregat River is used to supply a significant part of the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona.

The combined impact of land use change and aquaculture on sediment and water quality in oligotrophic Lake Rupanco (North Patagonia, Chile, 40.8°S).

Water and sediment quality in North Patagonia's large, oligotrophic lakes are expected to suffer as native forest continues to be fragmented and degraded by its conversion to cropping and pasture land uses. These changes in land use are expected to increase diffuse nutrient loads to the region's lakes. In addition, these lakes are home to the world's second largest salmon aquaculture industry which provides additional point sources of nutrients within the lakes.

Exploring the links between antibiotic occurrence, antibiotic resistance, and bacterial communities in water supply reservoirs.

Antibiotic resistance represents a growing global health concern due to the overuse and misuse of antibiotics. There is, however, little information about how the selective pressure of clinical antibiotic usage can affect environmental communities in aquatic ecosystems and which bacterial groups might be responsible for dissemination of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) into the environment. In this study, chemical and biological characterization of water and sediments from three water supply reservoirs subjected to a wide pollution gradient allowed to draw an accurate picture of the concentration of antibiotics and prevalence of ARGs, in order to evaluate the potential role of ARGs in shaping bacterial communities, and to identify the bacterial groups most probably carrying and disseminating ARGs.

Linking in-stream nutrient flux to land use and inter-annual hydrological variability at the watershed scale.

The significance of nutrient inputs at the watershed scale is best expressed in terms of in-stream processes, compared to evaluating simple field measurements of nutrient inputs. Modeling tools are necessary to consider the complexity of river networks in the determination of the sources and processes by which nutrients are transported at the watershed scale. Mediterranean rivers are potentially vulnerable to climate change (decrease in precipitation and increase of extreme events), and identifying and quantifying nutrient pollution sources and their spatial distribution can improve water resource management at the watershed scale.

Occurrence and modeling of pharmaceuticals on a sewage-impacted Mediterranean river and their dynamics under different hydrological conditions.

The occurrence of 73 representative pharmacologically active compounds (PhACs) was assessed in a sewage-impacted section of the Llobregat River (NE Catalonia, Spain). This Mediterranean river is characterized by flow rate fluctuations strongly influenced by seasonal rainfall. River flow variations increase the potential environmental risk posed by organic micro-pollutants as their concentrations may increase substantially under low flow conditions.