A global synthesis of human impacts on the multifunctionality of streams and rivers

Brauns, Mario; Allen, Daniel C.; Boëchat, Iola G.; Cross, Wyatt F.; Ferreira, Verónica; Graeber, Daniel; Patrick, Christopher J.; Peipoch, Marc; Schiller, Daniel von; Gücker, Björn

doi:10.1111/gcb.16210

Cited by 49 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 103 publications

(98 reference statements)

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“…Land use change from natural vegetation to other uses (e.g., agriculture, urbanization, or grazing) is one of the major causes of water quality degradation and loss of ecological integrity in rivers worldwide (Allan, 2004;Dudgeon, 2010;Vörösmarty et al, 2010;Brauns et al, 2022). Catchment land use change influence the structure and functioning of rivers mainly through changes in runoff and erosional processes, organic matter dynamics, the input of nutrients and major ions, in-stream ecosystem processes such as primary production, organic matter processing and nutrient cycling, and the composition of biological communities (Dudgeon et al, 2006;Bernot et al, 2010;Petrone, 2010;Tank et al, 2010;Woodward et al, 2012;Fugère et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Drivers of water quality in Afromontane-savanna rivers

Wanderi

Gettel

Singer

et al. 2022

Front. Environ. Sci.

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Although several studies have investigated the relationships between water quality in rivers and the types of land use within their catchments, many aspects of these relationships remain unclear in Afromontane-savanna rivers, especially the interactions between catchment land use, seasonality and stream size. Afromontane-savanna catchments present a unique situation where headwater regions and lowlands have experienced more dramatic land cover change, but mid-elevation regions remained rather natural. We examined the influence of seasonality, catchment land use and stream size, including their interactions, on water physico-chemistry, nutrients and major ions in the Afromontane-savanna Mara River in Kenya, using data collected from 2010 to 2018 at >150 sampling sites in the Kenyan part of the river. We developed generalized linear mixed models (GLMMs) to explore the influence of seasonality (dry and wet seasons), land use (forest, mixed, agriculture and grasslands), stream size (stream orders 1–7), and their interactions on river water quality. Water quality variables included physico-chemical measures (pH, dissolved oxygen [DO] concentration, temperature, electrical conductivity, total dissolved solids [TDS], turbidity, total suspended solids [TSS] and particulate organic matter [POM]), nutrients (NH4+, NO3−, total dissolved nitrogen [TDN], total nitrogen [TN], soluble reactive phosphorus [SRP], total phosphorus [TP] and dissolved organic carbon), and major ions (Cl−, F−, SO42−, Na+, K+, Ca2+, Mg2+, Fe2+, HCO3− and Si). There were clear differences in average values of most water quality variables among land uses with sites in savanna grasslands having high levels of major ions, ammonium and P, while agricultural sites had higher dissolved fraction of N (except ammonium). Stream order was a poor predictor of water quality, and most parameters did not display any relationship (either linear or non-linear) with stream size. Our results can be used to efficiently enhance water quality by developing strategies for stream restoration and management based on the predomination type of land use in the catchments.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Drivers of water quality in Afromontane-savanna rivers

Wanderi

Gettel

Singer

et al. 2022

Front. Environ. Sci.

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“…Aquatic ecosystems are threatened by multiple human stressors, such as agriculture, urbanization, flow regulation, habitat loss, nutrient enrichment, and wastewater. 1 The United Nations proposed a goal to improve water quality by reducing pollution and minimizing the discharge of harmful chemicals. 2 With rapid urbanization, the amount of treated wastewater in China increased by nearly 5-fold from 2001 to 2018, and a large proportion of rivers are under stress because of the discharge of wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) effluents.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Aquatic ecosystems are threatened by multiple human stressors, such as agriculture, urbanization, flow regulation, habitat loss, nutrient enrichment, and wastewater . The United Nations proposed a goal to improve water quality by reducing pollution and minimizing the discharge of harmful chemicals .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Wastewater Deterministically Impacts the Composition and Assembly of Planktonic Microorganisms in the River Ecosystem

Zhang,

Huo,

Zhang

et al. 2024

ACS EST Water

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Bacteria and microeukaryotes inhabiting urban freshwater are susceptible to environmental disturbance, particularly effluents from wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). However, how riverine microbial community succession responds to WWTP effluent and its assembly processes remains poorly addressed. Herein, surface water samples were collected from an urban river to explore the community dynamics and assembly processes under the impact of the WWTP effluent. Physicochemical property variation (e.g., total phosphorus and nitrate concentration) caused by wastewater was more strongly correlated with the microbial community than with geographic distance. Importantly, deterministic processes increase from 34.8 to 93.3% for bacterial community assembly from upstream to downstream. Betaproteobacteria, Bacillariophyta, and Chlorophyceae exhibited essential roles in mediating the community composition against WWTP effluent discharge. In addition, bacteria tend to have a stronger interaction in wet or normal periods, while microeukaryotes may have more stable networks in dry periods. Seasonal variation caused a significant discrepancy (ANOVA P = 0.001) in community composition for both bacteria and microeukaryotes. Our work provides systematic information on how treated wastewater contributes to microbial community succession and identifies the potential keystone taxa during the microbial response in wastewater, which may lead to improved management of wastewater discharge and river health.

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“…Aquatic ecosystems and their adjacent riparian areas are among the most threatened ecosystems globally, facing multiple human stressors related to land use and climate change (Brauns et al, 2022; Vörösmarty et al, 2010). One such stressor is heavy metal pollution caused by past and present mining activities, which is also common along highways or in areas of industrial and agricultural activity (Hogsden and Harding, 2012; Liu et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mining activities accelerate the decomposition of organic matter from aquatic ecosystems through soil microbes

et al. 2023

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Mining activities have been shown to affect the rate of carbon decomposition in aquatic ecosystems by altering the traits of the organic matter (e.g., leaf litter). However, the ecological function of soil microbes that enter aquatic ecosystems in association with organic matter is not known. Here, standardized cotton strip assays (CSA) were used to quantify the effects of soil microbial colonization location (mine vs. forest riverbank) and time (7 days vs. 14 days) on cellulose decomposition in aquatic ecosystems. The CSA results showed that the mine riverbank location and microbial colonization time had significant effects on the microbial community structure, microbial biomass, and functional genes of cellulose decomposition. Compared with the forest riparian zone, the fungal biomass and bacterial cellulose‐decomposing gene (GH48) abundance of cotton strips colonized in the mine riparian zone for 14 days were 12.5‐times and 54.93‐times higher than that of the cotton strips colonized in the forest riparian zone, respectively, while the fungal cellulose‐decomposing gene (cbhI) was detected only after 14 days of colonization. After 90 days of stream incubation, the decomposition rate and GH48 gene abundance of cotton strips colonized in the mine riparian zone for 14 days were significantly higher than those of cotton strips colonized in the forest riparian zone. However, the abundance of the cbhI gene in cotton strips colonized for 14 days was significantly higher than that in cotton strips colonized for 7 days. These results show that bacteria were mainly affected by the microbial colonization environment, while fungi were mainly affected by colonization time. Mining activities accelerate the decomposition of organic matter in aquatic ecosystems by increasing soil fungal biomass and bacterial cellulose decomposition genes. To reduce the carbon loss of aquatic ecosystems, it is necessary to study the potential influence of soil microbes on the decomposition of organic carbon in riparian zones.

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A global synthesis of human impacts on the multifunctionality of streams and rivers

Cited by 49 publications

References 103 publications

Drivers of water quality in Afromontane-savanna rivers

Drivers of water quality in Afromontane-savanna rivers

Wastewater Deterministically Impacts the Composition and Assembly of Planktonic Microorganisms in the River Ecosystem

Mining activities accelerate the decomposition of organic matter from aquatic ecosystems through soil microbes

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