Benthic Communities of Low-Order Streams Affected by Acid Mine Drainages: A Case Study from Central Europe

Abstract

Abstract:Only little attention has been paid to the impact of acid mine drainages (AMD) on aquatic ecosystems in Central Europe. In this study, we investigate the physico-chemical properties of low-order streams and the response of benthic invertebrates to AMD pollution in the Banská Štiavnica mining region (Slovakia). The studied streams showed typical signs of mine drainage pollution: higher conductivity, elevated iron, aluminum, zinc and copper loads and accumulations of ferric precipitates. Electric conductivity correlated strongly with most of the investigated elements (weighted mean absolute correlation = 0.95) and, therefore, can be recommended as a good proxy indicator for rapid AMD pollution assessments. The diversity and composition of invertebrate assemblages was related to water chemistry. Taxa richness decreased significantly along an AMD-intensity gradient. While moderately affected sites supported relatively rich assemblages, the harshest environmental conditions (pH < 2.5) were typical for the presence of a limited number of very tolerant taxa, such as Oligochaeta and some Diptera 1313(Limnophyes, Forcipomyiinae). The trophic guild structure correlated significantly with AMD chemistry, whereby predators completely disappeared under the most severe AMD conditions. We also provide a brief review of the AMD literature and outline the needs for future detailed studies involving functional descriptors of the impact of AMD on aquatic ecosystems.

The Use of Digital Terrain Models to Estimate the Pace of Filling the Pit of a Central European Granite Quarry with Water

“…In many countries (e.g., in Australia, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, France, Poland, Sweden, the U.K. and the USA), hundreds of new pit or quarry lakes have been created [3,12,13,16,19,20,23,[27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37] in former excavations of clay, sand and gravel, in former stone quarries, and in former open-cast coal and lignite mines when their respective operations ceased [10,15,23,36,[38][39][40][41]. Pit lakes or quarry lakes may be used for various purposes, including, among others: recreation and tourism [3,5,[9][10][11][12]16,17,21,26,[42][43][44], wildlife habitats [5,[9][10][11][12]16,24], aquaculture and fish farming [3,…”

“…The potential use of water from pit lakes or quarry lakes depends on its quality and amount [11,19,23,36,37,47,[54][55][56][57]. These values are influenced by the size of the excavation pit, hydrogeological conditions, the geological structure of the mine and its surroundings, as well as the size and management of its own (direct) catchment [3,23,25,36,37,40,44,54,[58][59][60][61].…”

Mine Drainage and Oil Sand Water

“…The physico-chemical properties of low-order streams and the response of benthic invertebrates to AMD pollution was examined in the Banska Stiavnica mining region (Slovakia) (Svitok et al, 2014). The diversity and composition of invertebrate assemblages was related to water chemistry and taxa richness decreased significantly along an AMD-intensity gradient.…”

Dynamics in the effects of the species–area relationship versus local environmental factors in bomb crater ponds

“…Acidity, caused by human disturbances (Svitok et al, 2014;Wollmann, 2000) is shown to change species richness of aquatic macroinvertebrate communities (Mulholland et al, 1992;Wollmann, 2000). Also, acidity can increase the toxicity levels of some metals (e.g.…”