Treated and highly diluted, but wastewater still impacts diversity and energy fluxes of freshwater food webs

Guzmán, Ioar de; Elosegi, Arturo; Schiller, Daniel von; González, José Manuel; Paz, Laura Estefanía; Gauzens, Benoît; Brose, Ulrich; Antón, Álvaro; Olarte, Nuria; Montoya, José M.; Larrañaga, Aitor

doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2023.118510

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 59 publications

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“…Curtis & Harrington, 1971 ; Geatches et al, 2014 ; Oenemaa et al, 2005 ), with consequences for the survival and abundance of aquatic organisms (e.g. macroinvertebrates and algae communities, Chambers & Prepas, 1996 ; Guzman et al, 2023 ; Wright et al, 1995 ). The discharge of effluent into rivers has also been related to the development of ‘sewage fungus’, a complex matrix of fungus filaments, algae and bacteria (Mason, 1996 ) that can interact in unpredictable ways with the riverine community.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The combined effects of treated sewage discharge and land use on rivers

Albini,

Lester,

Sanders

et al. 2023

Global Change Biology

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Freshwater ecosystems are increasingly threatened by multiple anthropogenic stressors. Release of treated sewage effluent and pollution from agricultural or urban sources can independently reduce water quality with implications for ecological communities. However, our knowledge of the combined effects of these stressors is limited. We performed a field study to quantify the combined effect of treated sewage discharge and land use on nutrient concentrations, sewage fungus presence and communities of macroinvertebrates and benthic algae. Over three seasons in four rivers we found that a model which included an interaction between sewage pollution and time of the year (i.e. months) was the best predictor of nutrient concentrations and the abundance of algae and sewage fungus. Both macroinvertebrate and algae communities shifted downstream of sewage input. Specifically, more tolerant groups, such as cyanobacteria and oligochaetes, were more abundant. The EPT (Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera and Tricoptera) water quality score was best explained by an interaction between month and agriculture in the surrounding landscape. Overall, our results show that sewage discharge has a significant impact on water quality and benthic riverine communities, regardless of the surrounding land uses. Agricultural inputs, however, could be more important than treated sewage discharge in reducing the abundance of sensitive invertebrate taxa. We need both improvements to wastewater treatment processes and reductions in agricultural pollution to reduce threats to vulnerable freshwater communities.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The combined effects of treated sewage discharge and land use on rivers

Albini,

Lester,

Sanders

et al. 2023

Global Change Biology

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Recent advances and perspectives of biochar for livestock wastewater: Modification methods, applications, and resource recovery

Gao,

Ding,

Liu

et al. 2024

Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering

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Assessment of the Water Quality of WWTPs’ Effluents through the Use of Wastewater Quality Index

Benkov,

Tsakovski,

Venelinov

2024

Applied Sciences

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Evaluating the efficiency of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) and their impact on receiving surface water bodies is a complex and highly significant task due to its regulatory implications for both environmental and public health. The monitoring of many water quality parameters related to the compliance of treated wastewater with environmental standards has led to the development of a unitless metric, the Wastewater Quality Index (WWQI), which serves as a practical tool for regulatory authorities. The aim of this research is to propose an appropriate WWQI methodology, incorporating a set of water quality indicators and a weighting approach, to evaluate wastewater effluents under operational monitoring. In this study, WWQI was successfully applied to access the operation of 21 WWTPs’ effluents within a single monitoring campaign, outside the mandatory monitoring schemes. The WWQI was computed for physical-chemical parameters including chemical oxygen demand (COD), total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP), total suspended solids (TSS), electrical conductivity (EC) and pH, priority substances (Cd, Ni and Pb) and a specific contaminant (Cr) using the weighted approach in the WWQI calculation, based on equal weighting, expert judgement and PCA weighing using factor loadings. The three approaches give similar results for the calculated WWQI. The expert judgment approach is more suitable for evaluating WWTP performance during a single monitoring campaign due to its simplicity compared to the PCA-based approach and its ability to prioritize specific water quality parameters over an equal weightage method.

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Treated and highly diluted, but wastewater still impacts diversity and energy fluxes of freshwater food webs

Cited by 3 publications

References 59 publications

The combined effects of treated sewage discharge and land use on rivers

The combined effects of treated sewage discharge and land use on rivers

Recent advances and perspectives of biochar for livestock wastewater: Modification methods, applications, and resource recovery

Assessment of the Water Quality of WWTPs’ Effluents through the Use of Wastewater Quality Index

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