Reducing wastewater nitrogen loading by >90% with carbon-amended septic systems: A field demonstration in Barnstable (Cape Cod), Massachusetts.

Onsite wastewater treatment systems (OWTS) are a major source of excess nutrients and co-pollutants in watersheds across the United States. In Barnstable County (Cape Cod), Massachusetts, effluent from septic systems and cesspools contributes approximately 80% of the controllable reactive nitrogen (N) load to numerous impaired estuaries and degrades water quality in the region's sole source aquifer, streams and ponds. In unsewered areas, wastewater N loads could be reduced substantially by Innovative/Alternative (I/A) septic systems designed for enhanced removal.

Lessons learned and recommendations in conducting solutions-driven environmental and public health research.

Solutions-driven research is a transdisciplinary approach that incorporates diverse forms of expertise to identify solutions to stakeholder-identified environmental problems. This qualitative evaluation of early solutions-driven research projects provides transferable recommendations to improve researcher and stakeholder experiences and outcomes in transdisciplinary environmental research projects. Researchers with the U.

Surveillance for second breast cancer events in women with a personal history of breast cancer using breast MRI: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Purpose: Women with personal history of breast cancer (PHBC) are currently recommended to receive annual mammography for surveillance of breast cancer recurrence or new primary. However, given issues in accuracy with mammography, there is a need for evolving evidence-based surveillance recommendations with supplemental imaging. In this systematic review, we compiled and compared existing studies that describe the test performance of surveillance breast MRI among women with PHBC.

Structured Decision Making to Meet a National Water Quality Mandate.

Water quality criteria are necessary to ensure protection of ecological and human health conditions, but compliance can require complex decisions. We use structured decision making to consider multiple stakeholder objectives in a water quality management process, with a case study in the Three Bays watershed on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. We set a goal to meet or exceed a nitrogen load reduction target for the watershed and four key objectives: minimizing economic costs of implementing management actions, minimizing the complexity of permitting management actions, maximizing stakeholder acceptability of the management actions, and maximizing the provision of ecosystem services (recreational opportunity, erosion and flood control, socio-cultural amenity).

Developing qualitative ecosystem service relationships with the Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response framework: A case study on Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Understanding the effects of environmental management strategies on society and the environment is critical for evaluating their effectiveness, but is often impeded by limited data availability. In this article, we present a method that can help scientists to support resource managers' thinking about social-ecological relationships in coupled human and natural systems. Our method aims to model qualitative cause-effect relationships between management strategies and ecosystem services, using information provided by knowledgeable participants, and the tradeoffs between strategies.

A resilience framework for chronic exposures: water quality and ecosystem services in coastal social-ecological systems.

Water quality degradation is a chronic problem which influences the resilience of a social-ecological system differently than acute disturbances, such as disease or storms. Recognizing this, we developed a tailored resilience framework that applies ecosystem service concepts to coastal social-ecological systems affected by degraded water quality. We present the framework as a mechanism for coordinating interdisciplinary research to inform long-term community planning decisions pertaining to chronic challenges in coastal systems.

Individual effects of estrogens on a marine fish, Cunner (Tautogolabrus adspersus), extrapolated to the population level.

Endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) in the environment may alter the population dynamics of wildlife by affecting reproductive output. This study describes a matrix modeling approach to link laboratory studies on endocrine disruption with potential ecological effects. The experimental model used is cunner (Tautogolabrus adspersus), which inhabit estuarine and marine areas where sewage treatment and other discharges containing estrogenic EDCs are likely.

Evaluating the ecological significance of laboratory response data to predict population-level effects for the estruarine amphipod Ampelisca abdita.

Ten-day acute mortality of the benthic amphipod Ampelisca abdita is used in a number of regulatory, research, and monitoring programs to evaluate chemical contamination of marine sediments. Although this endpoint has proven to be valuable for characterizing the relative toxicities of sediments, the significance of acute mortality with respect to population viability has not yet been established. In this study, population modeling along with empirical extrapolation were used to describe a relationship between acute mortality and population-level response of A.