Publications by authors named "Seyoum Gebremariam"

Ecological regime shift studies in freshwater systems are mainly limited to shallow lakes and reservoirs, while abrupt changes in deeper lakes are often attributed to climate change. Here, we demonstrate the application of regime shift theory to one of California's newest and deepest reservoirs, Diamond Valley Lake (DVL), which in recent years showed an unexpected rapid departure from its water quality conditions of the previous decade. The reservoir shifted from a well oxygenated condition with low phytoplankton growth to a hypoxic, phytoplankton-dominated turbid system.

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Twin Lakes, located on the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Indian Reservation in eastern Washington, USA, include North Twin Lake (NT) and South Twin Lake (ST). The mesotrophic, dimictic lakes are important recreational fishing sites for both warm-water bass and cold-water trout. To improve summertime cold-water habitat for trout in NT, dissolved oxygen (DO) addition to the hypolimnion, using liquid oxygen as an oxygen gas source, started in 2009.

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The effects of glucose on enhanced biological phosphorus removal (EBPR) activated sludge enriched with acetate was investigated using sequencing batch reactors. A glucose/acetate mixture was serially added to the test reactor in ratios of 25/75%, 50/50%, and 75/25% and the EBPR activity was compared to the control reactor fed with 100% acetate. P removal increased at a statistically significant level to a near-complete in the test reactor when the mixture increased to 50/50%.

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At environmentally relevant concentrations in soils and sediments, chlorpyrifos, a hydrophobic organic insecticide, showed strong adsorption that correlated significantly with organic matter content. Chlorpyrifos desorption followed a nonsingular falling desorption isotherm that was estimated using a memory-dependent mathematical model. Desorption of chlorpyrifos was biphasic in nature, with a labile and nonlabile component.

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Chlorpyrifos, one of the most widely used insecticides, has been detected in air, rain, marine sediments, surface waters, drinking water wells, and solid and liquid dietary samples collected from urban and rural areas. Its metabolite, TCP, has also been widely detected in urinary samples collected from people of various age groups. With a goal of elucidating the factors that control the environmental contamination, impact, persistence, and ecotoxicity of chlorpyrifos, we examine, in this review, the peer-reviewed literature relating to chlorpyrifos adsorption and desorption behavior in various solid-phase matrices.

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Enhanced biological phosphorus removal (EBPR) is a well-established technology for removing phosphorus from wastewater. However, the process remains operationally unstable in many systems, primarily because there is a lack of understanding regarding the microbiology of EBPR. This paper presents a review of advances made in the study of EBPR microbiology and focuses on the identification, enrichment, classification, morphology, and metabolic capacity of polyphosphate- and glycogen-accumulating organisms.

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Constructed treatment wetlands are efficient at retaining a range of pesticides, however the ultimate fate of many of these compound is not well understood. This study evaluated the effect of drain-fill cycling on the mineralization of chlorpyrifos, a commonly used organophosphate insecticide, in wetland sediment-water microcosms. Monitoring of the fate of (14)C ring-labeled chlorpyrifos showed that drain-fill cycling resulted in significantly lower mineralization rates relative to permanently flooded conditions.

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