Recovery of an industrially acidified, ammonium and heavy metals polluted lake (Lake Orta, N. Italy), due to the adoption of treatment plants

Bonacina, Carla; Bonomi, Giuliano; Barbanti, Lorenzo; Mosello, Rosario; Ruggiu, Delio

doi:10.1080/03680770.1987.11897976

Cited by 22 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…The pollution stopped in 1980, four years after the approval by the Italian Parliament of a law on the regulation of the discharge of industrial wastes into freshwater environments. The lake reaction was fast Mosello et al 1986;Bonacina et al 1988aBonacina et al , 1988bCalderoni et al 1990a), further accelerated after a liming intervention in -1990(Calderoni et al 1990b.…”

Section: The Study Site and Its History Of Pollution Recovery And Bimentioning

confidence: 99%

On the presence of Daphnia galeata in Lake Orta (N. Italy)

Piscia

Seďa²,

Bonacina³

et al. 2006

J Limnol

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Section: The Study Site and Its History Of Pollution Recovery And Bimentioning

confidence: 99%

On the presence of Daphnia galeata in Lake Orta (N. Italy)

Piscia

Seďa²,

Bonacina³

et al. 2006

J Limnol

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“…At the beginning of the 1980's a recovery phase began with the installation of a treatment plant at the rayon factory, which substantially reduced copper and ammonia loadings. Water chemistry suddenly improved, but pH was still very acid and alkaline reserves were absent (Mosello et al, 1986a(Mosello et al, , 1986bBonacina et al, 1988aBonacina et al, , 1988b. A liming treatment applied in -1990(Calderoni et al, 1991 was immediately effective in raising the pH (from 3.9 to 6.5), increasing the alkaline reserve, and causing the flocculation and sedimentation of toxicants.…”

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

When and how? Freshwater mussel recolonization in Lake Orta

et al. 2016

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Thanks to a video posted on a social network, live mussels of Unio elongatulus, have been recorded from Lake Orta (Italy) over one century after the last (and only) report. With its long and well documented history of pollution, Lake Orta offers the opportunity to document the post-extirpation recovery of freshwater unionid mussels. This case evidences that recovery/recolonization is possible despite a high devastation in the past, and permits to evaluate how fast recolonization may occur, in which way, and in what conditions. The answer to the how fast was sought by estimating the age of the larger and seemingly older individuals of the population. To address the in which way we compared the haplotypes of Lake Orta specimens of Unio elongatulus (the only species present) with those of surrounding populations. We concluded that, since Lake Orta lacks a direct connection with the putative source populations, colonizing mussels were almost certainly transported by fish carrying glochidia that were used for lake restocking after liming. Data from the long-term monitoring of water chemistry and sediments have allowed defining what conditions proved to be suitable for survival making possible the start of mussels recovery. But not only water and sediment quality matters for mussels recovery, which was delayed by nearly ten years after the reappearance of fish. This delay reflects the need of the whole trophic chain to be reestablished to allow the survival of the suitable and healthy host-fish populations necessary for mussels reproduction.

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“…Given its phytotoxicity, Cu pollution led to the virtual disappearance of phytoplankton with a time lag of two years, and with resultant damage to the whole food chain (Monti, 1930;Baldi, 1949). In the 1960s and 1970s, industrial discharges of Cu, Cr, Ni and Zn from plating factories located in the southern part of the drainage basin constituted a second source of pollution (Bonacina et al, 1973(Bonacina et al, , 1988Baudo et al, 1989). While the load of copper from the rayon factory decreased after 1958, ammonium was still discharged in amounts of 2000-3000 t N yr -1 (Bonacina et al, 1986;de Bernardi et al, 1996).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%