A Review of Urban Water Body Challenges and Approaches: (1) Rehabilitation and Remediation

Abstract

published scientific literature and what is known and needed by professionals actively working to rehabilitate aquatic resources in Oregon urban and rural residential areas. IMST (2012) summarized what was learned at that workshop and stimulated these two Fisheries articles, as well as a book (Yeakley et al., 2014).

Is there a relationship between socio-economic factors and biodiversity in urban ponds? A study in the city of Stockholm

“…For example, in stream ecology, the so called urban stream syndrome has gained much research interest in the past 15 years (Paul and Meyer 2001;Meyer et al 2005;Walsh et al 2005;Hughes et al 2014). This concept identifies a number of factors that affect urban watercourses that lead to reductions in biodiversity and dominance of tolerant species: increases in water-level fluctuation, nutrients, pollutants, temperature, and canalisation (Walsh et al 2005).…”

Urban Aquatic Ecosystems: the good, the bad and the ugly

“…Hydrologically, it is well established that increases in impervious cover, coupled with drainage systems in urban areas, create a flashier hydrological regime; for example, a study of nine urban areas dispersed across the United States showed a consistent pattern of increased magnitude and frequency of high flow events associated with urbanisation (Brown et al, 2009). Whilst this trend is well documented in temperate regions, evidence from Puerto Rico, where rivers are naturally flashy due to the precipitation regime and catchment characteristics, indicated that urban river regimes did not differ from naturally forested catchments , highlighting the need for further research in other ecoregions (Hughes et al, 2014b). Urbanisation can also modify the hydrological regime at the other end of the continuum via a reduction in base flows (Wenger et al, 2009), aquatic connectivity (Kaushal and Belt, 2012), and sediment delivery and transport (Taylor and Owens, 2009) resulting in changes to channel morphology (Chin, 2007).…”

“…Whilst an understanding of ecosystem responses to urbanisation is reasonably well established, further research on the impacts of urbanisation on habitat connectivity is required (Hughes et al, 2014b). Existing research has also tended to focus on specific geographic areas / regions and on relatively small catchments or waterbodies.…”

“…Existing research has also tended to focus on specific geographic areas / regions and on relatively small catchments or waterbodies. Future research should therefore seek to extend research effort into other ecoregions (Hughes et al, 2014b), consider larger systems (Francis, 2012) and a wider variety of waterbodies (Chester and Robson, 2013;Hassall, 2014) to facilitate further understanding. There is also a need for additional basic fundamental knowledge of urban aquatic ecology (Francis, 2014;Hassall, 2014), including food web shifts and species interactions in responses to urbanisation (Wenger et al 2009).…”

Urban Land Use, Water Quality, and Biological Conditions in the Lower Mississippi River Basin Bayous

“…Rehabilitation and remediation of these urban bayous would also improve these unique ecosystems and increase ecosystem services such as fishing and clean water (Hughes et al 2014).…”