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5/21/2018 | 11:45 AM - 12:00 PM | POLLUTING A STREAM FOR THE SAKE OF SCIENCE: A BACI EXPERIMENT ON THE ECOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF WWTP EFFLUENTS | 330 A

POLLUTING A STREAM FOR THE SAKE OF SCIENCE: A BACI EXPERIMENT ON THE ECOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF WWTP EFFLUENTS

Waste Water Treatment Plants (WWTP) greatly reduce point-source pollution from urban and industrial sources, thus contributing to improve the status of the receiving river ecosystems. Nevertheless, their effluents still consist of complex cocktails whose ecological effects are far from clear. We performed a BACI (Before-After, Control-Impact) experiment to assess their ecological effects in real conditions. We diverted part of the effluent of a large, urban WWTP into the lowermost 100 m of a small, unpolluted tributary stream. A 100-m long reach upstream from the diversion point was used as a control, and both reaches were studied for a year prior and a year after the diversion. Laboratory experiments showed the effluent to promote microbial activity and not to reduce gammarid survival. In the field, microbial activity was also promoted, nutrient uptake was reduced, whereas neither metabolism nor litter breakdown did change. The results point to a weak effect of this effluent on the receiving river ecosystems. How other systems are affected will depend on the quality of the WWTP effluent and its degree of dilution in stream water.

Water Quality
Multi-stressors
Functional Ecology

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Presenters/Authors

Arturo Elosegi (), University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), arturo.elosegi@ehu.eus;