Science of the Total Environment 540 (2016) 1–2
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Science of the Total Environment journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/scitotenv
Editorial
River conservation under multiple stressors: Integration of ecological status, pollution and hydrological variability
Rivers are receivers of chemical stressors from anthropogenic origin, including organic matter and inorganic nutrients (phosphorus, nitrogen), and many organic contaminants such as pesticides, pharmaceuticals, perfluorinated compounds surfactants or metals as well as newly discovered emerging risks like metal and carbon-based nanomaterials and microplastics. In impaired rivers other stressors also come to play and co-occur with these chemicals, with specific effects and different manifestation in time and space. Amongst these stressors, habitat alteration, interruption of flow water regime, or higher water temperature, complicate the survival and life cycle of organisms, especially of those sensitive, and are at the base of local extinctions and the overall decrease of biodiversity. In impaired rivers these emerging contaminants and risks mix up with nutrients in excess, or with abundant dissolved organic matter, especially in systems heavily impacted by industrial, agricultural and urban effluents, making up a complex co-occurrence of stressors with effects on biological communities difficult to attribute to any of them. It is the so-called multiple-stress situation. The combination of stressors can have deleterious effects on freshwater ecosystems although most current knowledge is limited to the effects of single stressors on the chemical and ecological status of water bodies and on ecosystem functioning. One of the pioneering projects in Europe devoted to multiple stressors was NOMIRACLE (Novel methods for integrated risk assessment of cumulative stressors). A selection of the scientific results of this project were published in Science of the Total Environment 408 (2010) 3719– 3724. During the development of NOMIRACLE, from the years 2004– 2009, probably the first and the largest integrated multi-stressors EU project, it was already evidenced that the focus on “chemical cocktails” should be replaced by the focus on the biological receptors and “stressor cocktails”. Holmstrup et al. (2010) in the same special issue summarized three core problems to be tackled: 1) the need to define the most potent combinations of natural and chemical stressors, 2) the importance to address the exposure sequence to stressors, and 3) the need to move from short-term laboratory tests to field validation by means of mesocosm studies. Simultaneously, Hering et al. (2010), published also in Science of the Total Environment, formulated the concept of “emerging stressors” in addition to the so-called “traditional stressors” like eutrophication. Under this framework, climate change, emerging substances, habitat deterioration, direct hydrological alteration, and invasive species are to be considered. It is the cumulative impact of the multiple stressors which together affect structure (biodiversity), functioning, and health of ecosystems and species. One of the key stressors
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2015.08.100 0048-9697/© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
is water scarcity that can limit biodiversity and economic activities in entire regions like the recent examples of California draught. The Spanish funded project SCARCE (Assessing and predicting effects on water quantity and quality in Iberian rivers caused by global change, Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, CSD200900065) tackled water scarcity in Spain. Since 2010 till last year each year we organized an annual conference and the papers were published in SCI journals, following the usual procedure of peer review. Previous conferences were held in Girona, Madrid, Valencia and Cadiz and they were published respectively in the following SCI journals. • Understanding effects of global change on water quantity and quality in river basins. Environmental Science Pollution Research, 19 (2012) • Integrated modelling and monitoring at different river basin scales under global change. Science of the Total Environment, 440 (2012) • Stressors in Mediterranean River Basins under Water Scarcity. Journal of Hazardous Materials, 263 (2013) • Towards a Better Understanding of the Links Between Stressors, Hazard Assessment and Ecosystem Services Under Water Scarcity. Science of the Total Environment, 503–504 (2015)
The SCARCE conference held in October 2014 in Tarragona was attended as well by many partners of the European Union funded project GLOBAQUA project (Managing the effects of multiple stressors on aquatic ecosystems under water scarcity, 603629). These two projects have common interests since both consider water scarcity as the main stressor in river systems. The conference held in Tarragona was the last one and integrated many of the data compiled during the whole duration of the project (December 2009–December 2014). This Special issue includes 44 papers covering topics of special interests about stressors in the Mediterranean river basins and other basins under water scarcity. The first part focuses on a general overview of multiple stressors, starting with three papers on the effect of multiple stressors using several mesocosm controlled experiments (Cañedo-Argüelles et al.; González-Ortegón et al.; Freixa et al.), followed by other works on the impact of stressors on biota in different communities (Stefanidis et al.; Nõges et al.; Val et al.). As a successive step for the study of multiple stressors, some models for the assessment of habitat quality (Terrado et al.) and ecosystem services (Shaw et al.) have been developed. These tools are the final steps before offering management options like the ones that are considered in two additional papers (Malve et al.; Koundouri et al.).
2
Editorial
The second part is focused on studies performed in Mediterranean basins, more specifically in the four Iberian river basins belonging to the SCARCE project. This part starts with the evaluation of sediment transport and runoff (Lobera et al.; Tuset et al.), river regulation (López Tarazón et al.), the effects of afforestation (Buendia et al.) and the water level fluctuations (López et al.) in sediment loads and size distribution. Directly linked with the previous hydrogeomorphology topics the next two papers consider river regulation too (von Schiller et al.) and flow connectivity (Cid et al.) from an ecological point of view. Continuing in the Mediterranean region, several papers describe in detail comprehensive monitoring studies of chemical contaminants in a variety of environmental matrices, like perfluoroalkyl substances (Lorenzo et al.), pesticides (Ccanccapa et al.), organochlorine compounds (Huertas et al.; Huertas et al.; Mil-Homens et al.) and pharmaceuticals (Huerta et al.). Considering this last group of compounds, four additional papers on bioaccumulation (Ruhí et al.), effects on biota (GonzálezOrtegón et al.), risk (Osorio et al.) and their interaction with other contaminants (Andreu et al.) are enclosed. Finally, this part contains a group of papers on bioavailability of metals (Roig et al.), ecotoxicity of sediments (de Castro-Català et al.) and the use of biomarkers (Colin et al.). This part of the special issue ends with three papers on risk assessment of chemical pollution (Kuzmanović et al.; López-Roldán et al.) and on water management (Kumar et al.) Seven other papers report a wider view on previously mentioned topics such as chemical and biological quality studies performed in different European basins included in the GLOBAQUA project. Two considering effects on biota (Aborgiba et al.) and biomarkers (Mihailović et al.) in the Sava, and three papers on the Danube (Kolarević et al.; Piria et al.) and metals (Pavlović et al.). Additional biota studies (Simić et al.) and on the impact of climate change (Papadaki et al.) in Western Balkans as well as on the effects of multiple stressors in the Adige catchment are also part of this Special issue. Finally this selection comprises a paper on the transport of chemical pollutants in a Southwest Germany (Schwientek et al.) The last couple of papers are based on South-America case studies. One on the risk assessment of PAHS in Colombian Cauca river (Sarria
et al.) and the other one on multiple stressors in reservoirs of São Paulo, Brazil (López-Doval et al.). Last but not least we would like to thank the authors for their contributions that for sure will make this special issue very remarkable and unique. To our understanding it is one of the most complete compilations on that topic with 44 papers accepted in the same special issue. Finally we would like to thank the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness from Spain and the European Union for supporting the two projects, SCARCE and GLOBAQUA, respectively. References Hering, D., Borja, A., Carstensen, J., Carvalho, L., Elliott, M., Feld, C.K., Heiskanen, A.-S., Johnson, R.K., Moe, J., Pont, D., Solheim, A.L., de Bund Wv, 2010. The European Water Framework Directive at the age of 10: a critical review of the achievements with recommendations for the future. Sci. Total Environ. 408, 4007–4019. Holmstrup, M., Bindesbøl, A.-M., Oostingh, G.J., Duschl, A., Scheil, V., Köhler, H.-R., Loureiro, S., Soares, A.M.V.M., Ferreira, A.L.G., Kienle, C., Gerhardt, A., Laskowski, R., Kramarz, P.E., Bayley, M., Svendsen, C., Spurgeon, D.J., 2010. Interactions between effects of environmental chemicals and natural stressors: a review. Sci. Total Environ. 408, 3746–3762.
Marta Schuhmacher Environmental Engineering Laboratory, Departament d'Enginyeria Quimica, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Av. Països Catalans 26, 43007 Tarragona, Spain E-mail address: [email protected]. Alícia Navarro-Ortega Laia Sabater Damia Barceló* Environmental Chemistry Department, IDAEA-CSIC, Jordi Girona, 18-26, 08034 Barcelona, Spain *Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (A. N-Ortega), [email protected] (L. Sabater), [email protected] (D. Barcelo).
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Science of the Total Environment journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/scitotenv
Editorial
River conservation under multiple stressors: Integration of ecological status, pollution and hydrological variability
Rivers are receivers of chemical stressors from anthropogenic origin, including organic matter and inorganic nutrients (phosphorus, nitrogen), and many organic contaminants such as pesticides, pharmaceuticals, perfluorinated compounds surfactants or metals as well as newly discovered emerging risks like metal and carbon-based nanomaterials and microplastics. In impaired rivers other stressors also come to play and co-occur with these chemicals, with specific effects and different manifestation in time and space. Amongst these stressors, habitat alteration, interruption of flow water regime, or higher water temperature, complicate the survival and life cycle of organisms, especially of those sensitive, and are at the base of local extinctions and the overall decrease of biodiversity. In impaired rivers these emerging contaminants and risks mix up with nutrients in excess, or with abundant dissolved organic matter, especially in systems heavily impacted by industrial, agricultural and urban effluents, making up a complex co-occurrence of stressors with effects on biological communities difficult to attribute to any of them. It is the so-called multiple-stress situation. The combination of stressors can have deleterious effects on freshwater ecosystems although most current knowledge is limited to the effects of single stressors on the chemical and ecological status of water bodies and on ecosystem functioning. One of the pioneering projects in Europe devoted to multiple stressors was NOMIRACLE (Novel methods for integrated risk assessment of cumulative stressors). A selection of the scientific results of this project were published in Science of the Total Environment 408 (2010) 3719– 3724. During the development of NOMIRACLE, from the years 2004– 2009, probably the first and the largest integrated multi-stressors EU project, it was already evidenced that the focus on “chemical cocktails” should be replaced by the focus on the biological receptors and “stressor cocktails”. Holmstrup et al. (2010) in the same special issue summarized three core problems to be tackled: 1) the need to define the most potent combinations of natural and chemical stressors, 2) the importance to address the exposure sequence to stressors, and 3) the need to move from short-term laboratory tests to field validation by means of mesocosm studies. Simultaneously, Hering et al. (2010), published also in Science of the Total Environment, formulated the concept of “emerging stressors” in addition to the so-called “traditional stressors” like eutrophication. Under this framework, climate change, emerging substances, habitat deterioration, direct hydrological alteration, and invasive species are to be considered. It is the cumulative impact of the multiple stressors which together affect structure (biodiversity), functioning, and health of ecosystems and species. One of the key stressors
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2015.08.100 0048-9697/© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
is water scarcity that can limit biodiversity and economic activities in entire regions like the recent examples of California draught. The Spanish funded project SCARCE (Assessing and predicting effects on water quantity and quality in Iberian rivers caused by global change, Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, CSD200900065) tackled water scarcity in Spain. Since 2010 till last year each year we organized an annual conference and the papers were published in SCI journals, following the usual procedure of peer review. Previous conferences were held in Girona, Madrid, Valencia and Cadiz and they were published respectively in the following SCI journals. • Understanding effects of global change on water quantity and quality in river basins. Environmental Science Pollution Research, 19 (2012) • Integrated modelling and monitoring at different river basin scales under global change. Science of the Total Environment, 440 (2012) • Stressors in Mediterranean River Basins under Water Scarcity. Journal of Hazardous Materials, 263 (2013) • Towards a Better Understanding of the Links Between Stressors, Hazard Assessment and Ecosystem Services Under Water Scarcity. Science of the Total Environment, 503–504 (2015)
The SCARCE conference held in October 2014 in Tarragona was attended as well by many partners of the European Union funded project GLOBAQUA project (Managing the effects of multiple stressors on aquatic ecosystems under water scarcity, 603629). These two projects have common interests since both consider water scarcity as the main stressor in river systems. The conference held in Tarragona was the last one and integrated many of the data compiled during the whole duration of the project (December 2009–December 2014). This Special issue includes 44 papers covering topics of special interests about stressors in the Mediterranean river basins and other basins under water scarcity. The first part focuses on a general overview of multiple stressors, starting with three papers on the effect of multiple stressors using several mesocosm controlled experiments (Cañedo-Argüelles et al.; González-Ortegón et al.; Freixa et al.), followed by other works on the impact of stressors on biota in different communities (Stefanidis et al.; Nõges et al.; Val et al.). As a successive step for the study of multiple stressors, some models for the assessment of habitat quality (Terrado et al.) and ecosystem services (Shaw et al.) have been developed. These tools are the final steps before offering management options like the ones that are considered in two additional papers (Malve et al.; Koundouri et al.).
2
Editorial
The second part is focused on studies performed in Mediterranean basins, more specifically in the four Iberian river basins belonging to the SCARCE project. This part starts with the evaluation of sediment transport and runoff (Lobera et al.; Tuset et al.), river regulation (López Tarazón et al.), the effects of afforestation (Buendia et al.) and the water level fluctuations (López et al.) in sediment loads and size distribution. Directly linked with the previous hydrogeomorphology topics the next two papers consider river regulation too (von Schiller et al.) and flow connectivity (Cid et al.) from an ecological point of view. Continuing in the Mediterranean region, several papers describe in detail comprehensive monitoring studies of chemical contaminants in a variety of environmental matrices, like perfluoroalkyl substances (Lorenzo et al.), pesticides (Ccanccapa et al.), organochlorine compounds (Huertas et al.; Huertas et al.; Mil-Homens et al.) and pharmaceuticals (Huerta et al.). Considering this last group of compounds, four additional papers on bioaccumulation (Ruhí et al.), effects on biota (GonzálezOrtegón et al.), risk (Osorio et al.) and their interaction with other contaminants (Andreu et al.) are enclosed. Finally, this part contains a group of papers on bioavailability of metals (Roig et al.), ecotoxicity of sediments (de Castro-Català et al.) and the use of biomarkers (Colin et al.). This part of the special issue ends with three papers on risk assessment of chemical pollution (Kuzmanović et al.; López-Roldán et al.) and on water management (Kumar et al.) Seven other papers report a wider view on previously mentioned topics such as chemical and biological quality studies performed in different European basins included in the GLOBAQUA project. Two considering effects on biota (Aborgiba et al.) and biomarkers (Mihailović et al.) in the Sava, and three papers on the Danube (Kolarević et al.; Piria et al.) and metals (Pavlović et al.). Additional biota studies (Simić et al.) and on the impact of climate change (Papadaki et al.) in Western Balkans as well as on the effects of multiple stressors in the Adige catchment are also part of this Special issue. Finally this selection comprises a paper on the transport of chemical pollutants in a Southwest Germany (Schwientek et al.) The last couple of papers are based on South-America case studies. One on the risk assessment of PAHS in Colombian Cauca river (Sarria
et al.) and the other one on multiple stressors in reservoirs of São Paulo, Brazil (López-Doval et al.). Last but not least we would like to thank the authors for their contributions that for sure will make this special issue very remarkable and unique. To our understanding it is one of the most complete compilations on that topic with 44 papers accepted in the same special issue. Finally we would like to thank the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness from Spain and the European Union for supporting the two projects, SCARCE and GLOBAQUA, respectively. References Hering, D., Borja, A., Carstensen, J., Carvalho, L., Elliott, M., Feld, C.K., Heiskanen, A.-S., Johnson, R.K., Moe, J., Pont, D., Solheim, A.L., de Bund Wv, 2010. The European Water Framework Directive at the age of 10: a critical review of the achievements with recommendations for the future. Sci. Total Environ. 408, 4007–4019. Holmstrup, M., Bindesbøl, A.-M., Oostingh, G.J., Duschl, A., Scheil, V., Köhler, H.-R., Loureiro, S., Soares, A.M.V.M., Ferreira, A.L.G., Kienle, C., Gerhardt, A., Laskowski, R., Kramarz, P.E., Bayley, M., Svendsen, C., Spurgeon, D.J., 2010. Interactions between effects of environmental chemicals and natural stressors: a review. Sci. Total Environ. 408, 3746–3762.
Marta Schuhmacher Environmental Engineering Laboratory, Departament d'Enginyeria Quimica, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Av. Països Catalans 26, 43007 Tarragona, Spain E-mail address: [email protected]. Alícia Navarro-Ortega Laia Sabater Damia Barceló* Environmental Chemistry Department, IDAEA-CSIC, Jordi Girona, 18-26, 08034 Barcelona, Spain *Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (A. N-Ortega), [email protected] (L. Sabater), [email protected] (D. Barcelo).
