The Cost of Clean Water in the Delaware River Basin (USA)

Kauffman, Gerald J.

doi:10.3390/w10020095

Cited by 7 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…Such DO decrease patterns have been explored in several locations throughout the world. The DO, for instance, has been a seasonal DO variation, low (DO < 10 mgO 2 /L) and high (DO > 14 mgO 2 /L) over Clackamas River near Oregon City, OR, USA 14 , and rising RWTs in the Delaware River, the USA by 2 °C to peak summer levels of 30 °C, based on saturation, DO levels will decline by about 0.2 mgO 2 /L 13 . Generally, RWT and AT are directly correlated, but RWT and DO are inversely correlated 14 , 16 .…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of climate change on river water temperature and dissolved oxygen: Indian riverine thermal regimes

Rajesh

Rehana

2022

Sci Rep

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The impact of climate change on the oxygen saturation content of the world’s surface waters is a significant topic for future water quality in a warming environment. While increasing river water temperatures (RWTs) with climate change signals have been the subject of several recent research, how climate change affects Dissolved Oxygen (DO) saturation levels have not been intensively studied. This study examined the direct effect of rising RWTs on saturated DO concentrations. For this, a hybrid deep learning model using Long Short-Term Memory integrated with k-nearest neighbor bootstrap resampling algorithm is developed for RWT prediction addressing sparse spatiotemporal RWT data for seven major polluted river catchments of India at a monthly scale. The summer RWT increase for Tunga-Bhadra, Sabarmati, Musi, Ganga, and Narmada basins are predicted as 3.1, 3.8, 5.8, 7.3, 7.8 °C, respectively, for 2071–2100 with ensemble of NASA Earth Exchange Global Daily Downscaled Projections of air temperature with Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 scenario. The RWT increases up to7 °C for summer, reaching close to 35 °C, and decreases DO saturation capacity by 2–12% for 2071–2100. Overall, for every 1 °C RWT increase, there will be about 2.3% decrease in DO saturation level concentrations over Indian catchments under climate signals.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of climate change on river water temperature and dissolved oxygen: Indian riverine thermal regimes

Rajesh

Rehana

2022

Sci Rep

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“…First, this research informs us that recovery is a long-term process, which could take decades to complete if no additional restoration efforts are made. Additional restoration efforts may speed up the recovery process but can be extremely costly depending on the scale of the effort [35]. In this study, a 42-year recovery period was required to recover the base trophic microbial community.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing Diatom Community Dynamics in a Recovering Agricultural Stream in Middle Georgia, USA

Brown

Manoylov

2023

Phycology

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Streams play vital roles in surrounding communities and provide essential ecosystem services. The protection of streams is important, they are legally protected under the Clean Water Act, and they can be monitored through the continuous analyses of biological data, such as algal or other aquatic communities. The goals of this study were to analyze the long-term recovery of Tobler Creek, a recovering agricultural stream on the site of a National Historic Landmark, and yield comparisons to a local low-impact stream, Murder Creek, located within the Oconee National Forest. In 2011, Tobler Creek exceeded reference criteria values for total phosphorus (TP) but met the nitrate nitrogen criteria. With an 11-year recovery period, Tobler Creek met both nutrient reference criteria. In 2022, periphyton samples were collected according to standard protocols, confirming that diatoms are the dominant algal group in the community. With recovery, Tobler Creek showed an increase in diatom species richness (χ2 = 116.11, df = 5, p < 0.01) but this was significantly lower than the values documented in Murder Creek. The multi-metric index (MMI), calculated using diatom community analysis to estimate ecological health, indicated that Tobler Creek experienced degradation from 2011 to 2022 (χ2 = 55.97, df = 5, p < 0.05) and is below the regional 25th percentile. The percentage of sediment-tolerant taxa (surirelloid, naviculoid, and nitzschoid) was significantly higher in Tobler Creek in 2022 (χ2 = 500.96, df = 5, p < 0.01) compared to Murder Creek in 2022 (t = −4.67, df = 10, p < 0.01). Despite a reduction in nutrients given the 42-year recovery period, the diatom community in Tobler Creek was significantly different than other regional protected streams. Ecological degradation of the habitat was likely driven by sedimentation due to run-off in the recovering agriculture stream. These findings highlight the importance of protecting water quality, as the recovery of nutrients can be a decades-long process overlayed with many potentially new stressors influencing aquatic organisms.

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“…The basin's 2,000 tributaries flow into the 330mile long Delaware River, including the Schuylkill and Lehigh Rivers in Pennsylvania (Delaware River Basin Commission, 2019;Schmidt, 2019). The basin supports a valuable water-based economy (e.g., recreation, water supply, fishing, ecotourism, and agriculture) that generates over $21 billion per year and supports 600,000 jobs (Kauffman, 2011;Kauffman, 2016;Kauffman, 2018;Delaware River Basin Commission, 2019;Schmidt, 2019). The Delaware River is home to a number of freshwater aquatic habitats that support perennial trout fisheries, the migrations of native fish species including striped bass and Atlantic sturgeon, and the breeding of horseshoe crabs (Delaware River Basin Commission, 2019).…”

Section: Case Study: Delaware River Basinmentioning

confidence: 99%

Simulating basin-scale linkages of the food-energy-water nexus with reduced complexity modeling

Bokhari,

Najafi,

Dawidowicz

et al. 2023

Front. Environ. Sci.

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There is a rapidly growing need to communicate to the public and policymakers on the nature and impact of climate change and its associated extremes, which manifest themselves across essential Food-Energy-Water Systems (FEWS). The complexity of this nexus demands analytical tools that can capture the essence of FEWS with the climate system, which may be difficult to stage and implement from a computationally efficient point-of-view. Reduced Complexity Models (RCMs) can synthesize important facets of a system quickly and with less dependence on difficult-to-assign inputs. We report on the development of an RCM framework for the FEWS nexus, to serve as a basic research tool in facilitating parameter sensitivity experiments as well as a means to establish more insightful dialogue with stakeholders through joint scenario construction. Three stand-alone and coupled models at the basin scale have been configured using Stella Architect software to simulate: 1) major flows and storage of water, 2) power plant operations and subsequent impacts on river reaches; and 3) nitrogen (N) mobilization and transport from atmospheric and landmass sources to riverine receiving waters. The Delaware River Basin is chosen for a contemporary simulation test case. Modeled results are calibrated and validated using observed stream gauge data, indicating reliable model performance at the monthly and annual time steps (0.57 < NSE < 0.98). A set of single and multi-factor climate, technology, and policy experiments are then explored using the RCM framework. Basin-scale system sensitivities are investigated across a set of intensified climate extremes, revealing the crucial roles of sewage treatment and energy infrastructure for climate resilience, significant exacerbations as well as mitigations of thermal and N pollution under opposing climate extremes, and important tradeoffs between river temperature and electricity production that are explored with technology and policy scenarios.

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The Cost of Clean Water in the Delaware River Basin (USA)

Cited by 7 publications

References 29 publications

Impact of climate change on river water temperature and dissolved oxygen: Indian riverine thermal regimes

Impact of climate change on river water temperature and dissolved oxygen: Indian riverine thermal regimes

Assessing Diatom Community Dynamics in a Recovering Agricultural Stream in Middle Georgia, USA

Simulating basin-scale linkages of the food-energy-water nexus with reduced complexity modeling

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