Freshwater quality in urban areas: a case study from Rome, Italy

Mancini, Laura; Formichetti, Paolo; D'Angelo, Anna Maria; Pierdominici, Elio; Sorace, Alberto; Bottoni, Paola; Iaconelli, Marcello; Ferrari, Cinzia; Tancioni, Lorenzo; Rossi, Nicholas; Rossi, Alessandra

doi:10.1016/j.microc.2004.08.009

Cited by 14 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…To measure the extent of anthropogenic landscape modification around each sampled location, land-use data for a circular buffer of 1 km (see [11]) were obtained from the CORINE (Co-ordination of Information on the Environment) land-cover database. A geographical information system (ArcGis, ver.…”

Section: Surveyed Environmental Featuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Longitudinal variation of macroinvertebrate communities in a Mediterranean river subjected to multiple anthropogenic stressors

Manfrin

Larsen

Traversetti

et al. 2013

Internat. Rev. Hydrobiol.

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River impoundments and waste water discharge are a serious threat to the integrity and biodiversity of river ecosystems, especially in central Italy. Benthic macroinvertebrates were sampled in autumn and summer along the Aniene River to assess the cumulative biological effect of the numerous dams and sewage treatment plants that affect its middle and lower course. We hypothesized that (i) increasing habitat impairment would promote the formation of nestedness in species assemblage, where species poor locations support only a sub‐set of organisms from richer sites; (ii) specific life‐history traits would confer sensitivity to habitat degradation. Patterns of macroinvertebrate richness and diversity along the river tracked the distribution of dams and sewage treatment plants. Partial Mantel test showed that dissimilarity in assemblages increased with the number of dams and treatment plants between reaches after controlling for longitudinal distance. Assemblages were significantly nested, and nestedness appeared related to both water quality gradients (phosphorous, turbidity) that reflected anthropogenic inputs, and to natural gradient in altitude. Reaches with nested assemblages (supporting a sub‐set of the species pool) were characterized by greater representations of taxa with shorter life cycles, while, in contrast, species rich sites supported taxa with longer life cycles and lower dispersal ability. These results suggest that the cumulative effect of dams and sewage treatment plants promoted the formation of nested subsets in species distribution. Moreover, it appeared that certain functional traits that conferred sensitivity also dictated the progressive non‐random loss of taxa in face of multiple anthropogenic stressors. These findings have conservation implications in the regions, but need to be considered preliminary since anthropogenic and natural factors co‐varied systematically along the study river precluding the identification of single factor effects.

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Section: Surveyed Environmental Featuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Longitudinal variation of macroinvertebrate communities in a Mediterranean river subjected to multiple anthropogenic stressors

Manfrin

Larsen

Traversetti

et al. 2013

Internat. Rev. Hydrobiol.

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“…Its reliability, widely tested in all the different Italian riverine habitats (APAT 2003 and references therein; Isidori et al 2004;Mancini et al 2005), was also pointed out by studies based on the comparison with other European biological indices (see, e.g., Iliopoulou-Georgudaki et al 2003).…”

Section: In Situ Measurementsmentioning

confidence: 91%

Watershed influence on fluvial ecosystems: an integrated methodology for river water quality management

Carone¹,

Simoniello

Manfreda

et al. 2008

Environ Monit Assess

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The EU Water Framework Directive 2000/60 (Integrated River Basin Management for Europe) establishes the importance of preserving water quality through policies applied at watershed level given the strong links existing among ecological, hydrological, and hydrogeological systems. Therefore, monitoring campaigns of river water quality should be planned with multidisciplinary approaches starting from a landscape perspective. In this paper, the effects of the basin hydrology on the river water quality and, in particular, the impacts caused by the runoff production coming from agricultural areas are investigated. The fluvial segments receiving consistent amount of pollutant loads (due to the runoff routing over agricultural areas) are assumed more critical in terms of water quality and thus, they require more accurate controls. Starting from this perspective, to evaluate the runoff productions coming from agricultural areas, we applied a semi-distributed hydrological model that adopts satellite data, pedological and morphological information for the watershed description. Then, the river segments receiving critical amount of runoff loads from the surrounding cultivated areas were identified. Finally, in order to validate the approach, water quality for critical and non critical segment was investigated seasonally, by using river macroinvertebrates as indicators of water quality because of their effectiveness in preserving in time a memory of pollution events. Biomonitoring data showed that river water quality strongly decreases in correspondence of fluvial segments receiving critical amount of runoff coming from agricultural areas. The results highlight the usefulness of such a methodology to plan monitoring campaigns specifically devoted to non-point pollution sources and suggest the possibility to use this approach for water quality management and for planning river restoration policies.

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“…The contents of COD in the river have long been regarded as an index of anthropogenic pollution (Cui Jiansheng et al, 2003;Mancini et al, 2005). River pollution caused by industrial activities is mainly due to industrial wastewater discharge.…”

Section: Cod From Industrial Dischargementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Correspondingly, the grain output also was found to show an increase of 80 million tons during the same period. The number of population is closely related to the amount of domestic sewage discharged from both urban and rural areas, which is known as an important source of COD load in a river, specifically in those rivers running across urban areas (Mancini et al, 2005;Chebbo and Gromaire, 2004), and it is estimated that an adult can excrete 39.0 kg of organic matter, 4.4 kg of nitrogen and 0.6 kg of phosphorus per year (Duan Shuiwang, 2000). If extrapolating to the whole drainage basin (the number of population is multiplied by 0.85 to give the number of adults), about 120×10 6 tons of organic matter, 12×10 6 tons of nitrogen and 2×10 6 tons of phosphorus would be produced annually.…”

Section: Cod From Agricultural Activities Versus Population Growthmentioning

confidence: 99%

A decade of variation of COD in the Changjiang River (Yangtze River) and its variation trend analysis

Wang

Zhang

2007

Chin. J. of Geochem.

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The average annual value of COD (chemical oxygen demand) fluxes of the Changjiang River (Yangtze River) and its main tributaries in the past decade (i.e., 1991-2000), has been evaluated. Based on the data from the Datong Hydrological Station (DHS), it was found that the Dongting Lake drainage basin contributed the greatest water discharge (35.8%) and COD flux (48.3%) among the main tributary drainage basins, followed by the Poyang Lake drainage basin with the contributions of 15.4% and 19.3% respectively. By the end of the year of 2000, COD flux in the Changjiang River rose by almost 45% relative to that in the year of 1991, reaching about 1941000 ton/a at DHS. Statistical analysis revealed that industrial wastewater discharge, as well as COD in it, was found decreasing in the same period, due to the gradual reinforcement of environmental management. Moreover, correlation analysis indicated that non-point pollution from agriculture and increasing discharge of domestic sewages caused by rapid growth of population along the Changjiang River drainage valley should be responsible for the high COD. Furthermore, with the current trend of population growth and agricultural development in this basin, water quality of the Changjiang River, in terms of COD level, is going to deteriorate in the near future. Thus, the rational applications of fertilizers and pesticides in agriculture and the proper treatment of domestic sewages before they are discharged would be the most concerned controlling parameters.

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Freshwater quality in urban areas: a case study from Rome, Italy

Cited by 14 publications

References 19 publications

Longitudinal variation of macroinvertebrate communities in a Mediterranean river subjected to multiple anthropogenic stressors

Longitudinal variation of macroinvertebrate communities in a Mediterranean river subjected to multiple anthropogenic stressors

Watershed influence on fluvial ecosystems: an integrated methodology for river water quality management

A decade of variation of COD in the Changjiang River (Yangtze River) and its variation trend analysis

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