Pub Date : 2019-02-04DOI: 10.21083/SURG.V11I0.3989
Alannah Penno, Emily Agar, Jordyn Divok
Algal blooms, if left unmanaged, can negatively impact lake ecosystems. An unexplored method of removing excess nutrients from lakes, and therefore reducing algal blooms, is through the use of biochar. We hypothesize that due to the adsorptive characteristics of pyrolyzed material such as biochar and activated carbon, its presence would reduce the nutrient availability within aqueous solutions, therefore reducing algal growth. This experiment was conducted in an aqueous solution containing COMBO growth medium with and without the presence of activated carbon, studied under four conditions: 5 mg/L, 10 mg/L, 20 mg/L, and 50 mg/L phosphorous. We applied these treatments to an aqueous solution containing algae and measured fluorometer readings of the algae growth over a period of 12 days. An analysis of covariance followed by a Tukey’s HSD test demonstrated a significant difference between the means of samples containing activated carbon compared to samples without (p < 0.0001). Further, nutrient readings taken of each sample demonstrate a lower concentration of both phosphorus and nitrogen in samples containing activated carbon compared to those without. Our study demonstrates that activated carbon has the capacity to be used for the adsorption of phosphorous. This suggests that both activated carbon, as well as its more adsorptive counterpart, biochar, have the potential to be used in mitigating algal blooms and, more importantly, reducing the effects of anthropogenic eutrophication in aqueous environments.
{"title":"Effects of activated carbon on the growth of Chlorella vulgaris in an aqueous solution","authors":"Alannah Penno, Emily Agar, Jordyn Divok","doi":"10.21083/SURG.V11I0.3989","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21083/SURG.V11I0.3989","url":null,"abstract":"Algal blooms, if left unmanaged, can negatively impact lake ecosystems. An unexplored method of removing excess nutrients from lakes, and therefore reducing algal blooms, is through the use of biochar. We hypothesize that due to the adsorptive characteristics of pyrolyzed material such as biochar and activated carbon, its presence would reduce the nutrient availability within aqueous solutions, therefore reducing algal growth. This experiment was conducted in an aqueous solution containing COMBO growth medium with and without the presence of activated carbon, studied under four conditions: 5 mg/L, 10 mg/L, 20 mg/L, and 50 mg/L phosphorous. We applied these treatments to an aqueous solution containing algae and measured fluorometer readings of the algae growth over a period of 12 days. An analysis of covariance followed by a Tukey’s HSD test demonstrated a significant difference between the means of samples containing activated carbon compared to samples without (p < 0.0001). Further, nutrient readings taken of each sample demonstrate a lower concentration of both phosphorus and nitrogen in samples containing activated carbon compared to those without. Our study demonstrates that activated carbon has the capacity to be used for the adsorption of phosphorous. This suggests that both activated carbon, as well as its more adsorptive counterpart, biochar, have the potential to be used in mitigating algal blooms and, more importantly, reducing the effects of anthropogenic eutrophication in aqueous environments.","PeriodicalId":292569,"journal":{"name":"SURG Journal","volume":"38 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-02-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134165010","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nestlé Waters’s recent purchase of a well and water-taking rights in the Township of Centre Wellington, Ontario, has garnered national and international attention, raising concerns about how groundwater resources should be managed. In this paper, we explore free market environmentalism as a way to resolve groundwater management and water-takings issues in Ontario. Controversy over groundwater resources and their use, as illustrated by the recent case in Ontario, has become more prevalent globally as concerns about groundwater quality and scarcity develop. Our results suggest that, in theory, the incorporation of private property rights and the common law principle of riparian rights into provincial groundwater allocation mechanisms has the potential to resolve the emerging conflicts in Ontario. However, our analysis reveals that the current level of politicization in Ontario’s water allocation and pricing systems, combined with the current lack of adequate monitoring and documentation of groundwater use, are significant barriers to implementing a resource allocation mechanism for groundwater based on the principles of private ownership and riparian rights. We address these limitations to gain a deeper understanding the implications of the current water-takings system in Ontario, and conclude that these limitations deserve greater social and political attention if these controversies are to be resolved. While free market environmentalism has solutions to offer to Ontario’s groundwater management issue, the current political and institutional approaches to groundwater allocation and pricing in Ontario do not allow for them to be fully applied.
{"title":"Bottled water and groundwater in Ontario: Can free market environmentalism resolve the emerging conflicts?","authors":"A. Chemeris, K. Bruce, K. Kapitan, Lauren Sirrs","doi":"10.21083/surg.v9i2.3945","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21083/surg.v9i2.3945","url":null,"abstract":"Nestlé Waters’s recent purchase of a well and water-taking rights in the Township of Centre Wellington, Ontario, has garnered national and international attention, raising concerns about how groundwater resources should be managed. In this paper, we explore free market environmentalism as a way to resolve groundwater management and water-takings issues in Ontario. Controversy over groundwater resources and their use, as illustrated by the recent case in Ontario, has become more prevalent globally as concerns about groundwater quality and scarcity develop. Our results suggest that, in theory, the incorporation of private property rights and the common law principle of riparian rights into provincial groundwater allocation mechanisms has the potential to resolve the emerging conflicts in Ontario. However, our analysis reveals that the current level of politicization in Ontario’s water allocation and pricing systems, combined with the current lack of adequate monitoring and documentation of groundwater use, are significant barriers to implementing a resource allocation mechanism for groundwater based on the principles of private ownership and riparian rights. We address these limitations to gain a deeper understanding the implications of the current water-takings system in Ontario, and conclude that these limitations deserve greater social and political attention if these controversies are to be resolved. While free market environmentalism has solutions to offer to Ontario’s groundwater management issue, the current political and institutional approaches to groundwater allocation and pricing in Ontario do not allow for them to be fully applied.","PeriodicalId":292569,"journal":{"name":"SURG Journal","volume":"30 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-06-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116179192","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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