Pub Date : 2023-09-07DOI: 10.1371/journal.pwat.0000172
S. Haaland, B. Eikebrokk, G. Riise, R. D. Vogt
Levels of dissolved natural organic matter (DNOM) are increasing in our boreal watercourses. This is manifested by an apparent increase in its yellow to brown colour of the water, i.e., browning. Sound predictions of future changes in colour of our freshwaters is a prerequisite for predicting effects on aquatic fauna and a sustainable operation of drinking water facilities using surface waters as raw water sources. A model for the effect of climate on colour (mg Pt L-1) has been developed for two surface raw water sources in Scotland, i.e., at Bracadale and Port Charlotte. Both sites are situated far out on the Scottish west coast, without major impact of acid rain, with limited amounts of frost, and with limited recent land-use changes. The model was fitted to 15 years long data-series on colour measurements, provided by Scottish Water, at the two sites. Meteorological data were provided by UK Met. The models perform well for both sites in simulating the variation in monthly measured colour, explaining 89 and 90% of the variation at Bracadale and Port Charlotte, respectively. These well fitted models were used to predict future changes in colour due to changes in temperature and precipitation based on median climate data from a high emission climate RCP8.5 scenario from the HadCM3 climate model (UKCP18). The model predicted an increase in monthly average colour during growing season at both sites from about 150 mg Pt L-1 to about 200 mg Pt L-1 in 2050–2079. Temperature is found to be the most important positively driver for colour development at both sites.
{"title":"Browning of Scottish surface water sources exposed to climate change","authors":"S. Haaland, B. Eikebrokk, G. Riise, R. D. Vogt","doi":"10.1371/journal.pwat.0000172","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pwat.0000172","url":null,"abstract":"Levels of dissolved natural organic matter (DNOM) are increasing in our boreal watercourses. This is manifested by an apparent increase in its yellow to brown colour of the water, i.e., browning. Sound predictions of future changes in colour of our freshwaters is a prerequisite for predicting effects on aquatic fauna and a sustainable operation of drinking water facilities using surface waters as raw water sources. A model for the effect of climate on colour (mg Pt L-1) has been developed for two surface raw water sources in Scotland, i.e., at Bracadale and Port Charlotte. Both sites are situated far out on the Scottish west coast, without major impact of acid rain, with limited amounts of frost, and with limited recent land-use changes. The model was fitted to 15 years long data-series on colour measurements, provided by Scottish Water, at the two sites. Meteorological data were provided by UK Met. The models perform well for both sites in simulating the variation in monthly measured colour, explaining 89 and 90% of the variation at Bracadale and Port Charlotte, respectively. These well fitted models were used to predict future changes in colour due to changes in temperature and precipitation based on median climate data from a high emission climate RCP8.5 scenario from the HadCM3 climate model (UKCP18). The model predicted an increase in monthly average colour during growing season at both sites from about 150 mg Pt L-1 to about 200 mg Pt L-1 in 2050–2079. Temperature is found to be the most important positively driver for colour development at both sites.","PeriodicalId":93672,"journal":{"name":"PLOS water","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48889319","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}
Pub Date : 2023-09-07DOI: 10.1371/journal.pwat.0000173
Hussam Hussein, Zoe Campbell, Josephine Leather, Patrick Ryce
Water diplomacy is a recent term that has been used to analyse hydropoltiical dynamics and issues that may arise when discussing transboundary water governance. In fact, the shared nature of transboundary water resources may lead to tension over their allocation and use which can in turn aggravate or harm interstate relations and cooperation. This is important as most freshwater resource systems cross jurisdictional borders, with 153 countries sharing transboundary rivers, lakes, and aquifers. Thus, a coordinated and sustainable management of these resources through water diplomacy is vital. While the concept of water diplomacy has been defined in several ways, we stress the need to emphasise diplomacy and the goals beyond the water field when considering this concept.
{"title":"Putting diplomacy at the forefront of Water Diplomacy","authors":"Hussam Hussein, Zoe Campbell, Josephine Leather, Patrick Ryce","doi":"10.1371/journal.pwat.0000173","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pwat.0000173","url":null,"abstract":"Water diplomacy is a recent term that has been used to analyse hydropoltiical dynamics and issues that may arise when discussing transboundary water governance. In fact, the shared nature of transboundary water resources may lead to tension over their allocation and use which can in turn aggravate or harm interstate relations and cooperation. This is important as most freshwater resource systems cross jurisdictional borders, with 153 countries sharing transboundary rivers, lakes, and aquifers. Thus, a coordinated and sustainable management of these resources through water diplomacy is vital. While the concept of water diplomacy has been defined in several ways, we stress the need to emphasise diplomacy and the goals beyond the water field when considering this concept.","PeriodicalId":93672,"journal":{"name":"PLOS water","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46717991","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}
Pub Date : 2023-09-06DOI: 10.1371/journal.pwat.0000169
Yuji Saikai, Allan Peake, Karine Chenu
Deep reinforcement learning has considerable potential to improve irrigation scheduling in many cropping systems by applying adaptive amounts of water based on various measurements over time. The goal is to discover an intelligent decision rule that processes information available to growers and prescribes sensible irrigation amounts for the time steps considered. Due to the technical novelty, however, the research on the technique remains sparse and impractical. To accelerate the progress, the paper proposes a principled framework and actionable procedure that allow researchers to formulate their own optimisation problems and implement solution algorithms based on deep reinforcement learning. The effectiveness of the framework was demonstrated using a case study of irrigated wheat grown in a productive region of Australia where profits were maximised. Specifically, the decision rule takes nine state variable inputs: crop phenological stage, leaf area index, extractable soil water for each of the five top layers, cumulative rainfall and cumulative irrigation. It returns a probabilistic prescription over five candidate irrigation amounts (0, 10, 20, 30 and 40 mm) every day. The production system was simulated at Goondiwindi using the APSIM-Wheat crop model. After training in the learning environment using 1981–2010 weather data, the learned decision rule was tested individually for each year of 2011–2020. The results were compared against the benchmark profits obtained by a conventional rule common in the region. The discovered decision rule prescribed daily irrigation amounts that uniformly improved on the conventional rule for all the testing years, and the largest improvement reached 17% in 2018. The framework is general and applicable to a wide range of cropping systems with realistic optimisation problems.
{"title":"Deep reinforcement learning for irrigation scheduling using high-dimensional sensor feedback","authors":"Yuji Saikai, Allan Peake, Karine Chenu","doi":"10.1371/journal.pwat.0000169","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pwat.0000169","url":null,"abstract":"Deep reinforcement learning has considerable potential to improve irrigation scheduling in many cropping systems by applying adaptive amounts of water based on various measurements over time. The goal is to discover an intelligent decision rule that processes information available to growers and prescribes sensible irrigation amounts for the time steps considered. Due to the technical novelty, however, the research on the technique remains sparse and impractical. To accelerate the progress, the paper proposes a principled framework and actionable procedure that allow researchers to formulate their own optimisation problems and implement solution algorithms based on deep reinforcement learning. The effectiveness of the framework was demonstrated using a case study of irrigated wheat grown in a productive region of Australia where profits were maximised. Specifically, the decision rule takes nine state variable inputs: crop phenological stage, leaf area index, extractable soil water for each of the five top layers, cumulative rainfall and cumulative irrigation. It returns a probabilistic prescription over five candidate irrigation amounts (0, 10, 20, 30 and 40 mm) every day. The production system was simulated at Goondiwindi using the APSIM-Wheat crop model. After training in the learning environment using 1981–2010 weather data, the learned decision rule was tested individually for each year of 2011–2020. The results were compared against the benchmark profits obtained by a conventional rule common in the region. The discovered decision rule prescribed daily irrigation amounts that uniformly improved on the conventional rule for all the testing years, and the largest improvement reached 17% in 2018. The framework is general and applicable to a wide range of cropping systems with realistic optimisation problems.","PeriodicalId":93672,"journal":{"name":"PLOS water","volume":"56 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135098103","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}
Pub Date : 2023-09-05DOI: 10.1371/journal.pwat.0000154
Andrea K. Lemaitre, Joshua D. Miller, Justin Stoler
Traditional water indicators primarily focus on water quantity and quality, but emergent research demonstrates that measurement of lived experiences with water availability, accessibility, and use is important for understanding how household water insecurity impacts health and well-being. Few empirical studies have explored which household water insecurity experiences are most salient, or their potential causes, in Latin American cities. We analyzed data from 266 households in a low-income settlement of Cartagena, Colombia, to identify correlates and perceived determinants of water insecurity. The most prevalent household water insecurity experiences were water supply interruptions (96%), water worry (94%), and anger about the water situation (90%). Unexpected water interruptions and use of non-piped primary drinking water sources were associated with greater household water insecurity scores, water worry subscores, and hygiene subscores. Respondents perceived water issues in their community to be caused by deficiencies in gray infrastructure (49%), which included deficiencies in water distribution, treatment, or storage technologies. Social infrastructure (36%), including issues with political, economic, or administrative systems, was also cited as a barrier to water security. We did not detect significant relationships between water insecurity scores and the attribution of these problems to gray or social infrastructure, but there may be relationships between these factors and duration of residency and using a non-piped water source. These findings underscore the importance of socio-political factors and community engagement for improving urban water insecurity through slum-upgrade projects.
{"title":"Household water insecurity experiences and their perceived determinants in a low-income community of Cartagena, Colombia, during a water service expansion project","authors":"Andrea K. Lemaitre, Joshua D. Miller, Justin Stoler","doi":"10.1371/journal.pwat.0000154","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pwat.0000154","url":null,"abstract":"Traditional water indicators primarily focus on water quantity and quality, but emergent research demonstrates that measurement of lived experiences with water availability, accessibility, and use is important for understanding how household water insecurity impacts health and well-being. Few empirical studies have explored which household water insecurity experiences are most salient, or their potential causes, in Latin American cities. We analyzed data from 266 households in a low-income settlement of Cartagena, Colombia, to identify correlates and perceived determinants of water insecurity. The most prevalent household water insecurity experiences were water supply interruptions (96%), water worry (94%), and anger about the water situation (90%). Unexpected water interruptions and use of non-piped primary drinking water sources were associated with greater household water insecurity scores, water worry subscores, and hygiene subscores. Respondents perceived water issues in their community to be caused by deficiencies in gray infrastructure (49%), which included deficiencies in water distribution, treatment, or storage technologies. Social infrastructure (36%), including issues with political, economic, or administrative systems, was also cited as a barrier to water security. We did not detect significant relationships between water insecurity scores and the attribution of these problems to gray or social infrastructure, but there may be relationships between these factors and duration of residency and using a non-piped water source. These findings underscore the importance of socio-political factors and community engagement for improving urban water insecurity through slum-upgrade projects.","PeriodicalId":93672,"journal":{"name":"PLOS water","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43376316","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}
Pub Date : 2023-08-30DOI: 10.1371/journal.pwat.0000146
C. Nounkeu, Kevin Toumba Aoutaksa, C. B. Ndongo, S. Eyebe, A. Amani, Brian Bongwong Tamfon, Patrice Leumeni, Florent Kamkumo Ouabo, Daniele Sandra Yopa, Mathieu Ari, Bertin Nono, M. Ngoufack, N. Azza, E. Kouotou, J. Dharod, G. Nguefack-Tsague
There has been an increasing global interest in understanding, documenting, and monitoring water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services in schools. This study is the first to identify existing WASH-in-school capacities and understand the magnitude of the gaps in WASH coverage in schools in the Northern Cameroon, a region of the country marked by recurrent sanitary emergencies, the highest prevalence of acute malnutrition, and representing the largest and heaviest focus of food and water insecurity. Using a cross-sectional design, relevant authorities of 176 schools in Garoua, were interviewed. The survey guide included core questions for monitoring WASH in schools from recommended guidelines. Eleven indicators-related variables were extracted from data to calculate the WASH-in-school indicators composite score, which could be used as a more reliable and useful tool for comparison across settings and can contribute to harmonize data with WASH in schools related indicators applied in national surveys. The results of this research showed suboptimal drinking water supply systems and sanitation facilities whereas most schools had hand washing points available. However, activities that aimed to promote and sustain a WASH positive environment among children still need to be put in place. The WASH-in-school indicators composite score predictive value corroborated the disparities related to WASH access in schools located in Garoua. This score hence provides an assessment of the spatial dimensions of reduced access to water in schools, improper hygiene practices, and inadequate sanitation facilities. Such a score could be used to identify hotspots lacking WASH infrastructural facilities and strategize optimal interventions to reduce the incidence of WASH related diseases in schools.
{"title":"The status of water access, sanitation, and hygiene in schools: A cross sectional survey to identify capacities and assess coverage in Garoua, North Cameroon","authors":"C. Nounkeu, Kevin Toumba Aoutaksa, C. B. Ndongo, S. Eyebe, A. Amani, Brian Bongwong Tamfon, Patrice Leumeni, Florent Kamkumo Ouabo, Daniele Sandra Yopa, Mathieu Ari, Bertin Nono, M. Ngoufack, N. Azza, E. Kouotou, J. Dharod, G. Nguefack-Tsague","doi":"10.1371/journal.pwat.0000146","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pwat.0000146","url":null,"abstract":"There has been an increasing global interest in understanding, documenting, and monitoring water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services in schools. This study is the first to identify existing WASH-in-school capacities and understand the magnitude of the gaps in WASH coverage in schools in the Northern Cameroon, a region of the country marked by recurrent sanitary emergencies, the highest prevalence of acute malnutrition, and representing the largest and heaviest focus of food and water insecurity. Using a cross-sectional design, relevant authorities of 176 schools in Garoua, were interviewed. The survey guide included core questions for monitoring WASH in schools from recommended guidelines. Eleven indicators-related variables were extracted from data to calculate the WASH-in-school indicators composite score, which could be used as a more reliable and useful tool for comparison across settings and can contribute to harmonize data with WASH in schools related indicators applied in national surveys. The results of this research showed suboptimal drinking water supply systems and sanitation facilities whereas most schools had hand washing points available. However, activities that aimed to promote and sustain a WASH positive environment among children still need to be put in place. The WASH-in-school indicators composite score predictive value corroborated the disparities related to WASH access in schools located in Garoua. This score hence provides an assessment of the spatial dimensions of reduced access to water in schools, improper hygiene practices, and inadequate sanitation facilities. Such a score could be used to identify hotspots lacking WASH infrastructural facilities and strategize optimal interventions to reduce the incidence of WASH related diseases in schools.","PeriodicalId":93672,"journal":{"name":"PLOS water","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48112643","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}
Pub Date : 2023-08-30DOI: 10.1371/journal.pwat.0000119
Jesse E. Siegel, A. Fullerton, A. FitzGerald, Damon M. Holzer, Chris E. Jordan
Supporting sustainable lotic ecosystems and thermal habitats requires estimates of stream temperature that are high in scope and resolution across space and time. We combined and enhanced elements of existing stream temperature models to produce a new statistical model to address this need. Contrasting with previous models that estimated coarser metrics such as monthly or seasonal stream temperature or focused on individual watersheds, we modeled daily stream temperature across the entire calendar year for a broad geographic region. This model reflects mechanistic processes using publicly available climate and landscape covariates in a Generalized Additive Model framework. We allowed covariates to interact while accounting for nonlinear relationships between temporal and spatial covariates to better capture seasonal patterns. To represent variation in sensitivity to climate, we used a moving average of antecedent air temperatures over a variable duration linked to area-standardized streamflow. The moving average window size was longer for reaches having snow-dominated hydrology, especially at higher flows, whereas window size was relatively constant and low for reaches having rain-dominated hydrology. Our model’s ability to capture the temporally-variable impact of snowmelt improved its capacity to predict stream temperature across diverse geography for multiple years. We fit the model to stream temperatures from 1993–2013 and predicted daily stream temperatures for ~261,200 free-flowing stream reaches across the Pacific Northwest USA from 1990–2021. Our daily model fit well (RMSE = 1.76; MAE = 1.32°C). Cross-validation suggested that the model produced useful predictions at unsampled locations across diverse landscapes and climate conditions. These stream temperature predictions will be useful to natural resource practitioners for effective conservation planning in lotic ecosystems and for managing species such as Pacific salmon. Our approach is straightforward and can be adapted to new spatial regions, time periods, or scenarios such as the anticipated decline in snowmelt with climate change.
{"title":"Daily stream temperature predictions for free-flowing streams in the Pacific Northwest, USA","authors":"Jesse E. Siegel, A. Fullerton, A. FitzGerald, Damon M. Holzer, Chris E. Jordan","doi":"10.1371/journal.pwat.0000119","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pwat.0000119","url":null,"abstract":"Supporting sustainable lotic ecosystems and thermal habitats requires estimates of stream temperature that are high in scope and resolution across space and time. We combined and enhanced elements of existing stream temperature models to produce a new statistical model to address this need. Contrasting with previous models that estimated coarser metrics such as monthly or seasonal stream temperature or focused on individual watersheds, we modeled daily stream temperature across the entire calendar year for a broad geographic region. This model reflects mechanistic processes using publicly available climate and landscape covariates in a Generalized Additive Model framework. We allowed covariates to interact while accounting for nonlinear relationships between temporal and spatial covariates to better capture seasonal patterns. To represent variation in sensitivity to climate, we used a moving average of antecedent air temperatures over a variable duration linked to area-standardized streamflow. The moving average window size was longer for reaches having snow-dominated hydrology, especially at higher flows, whereas window size was relatively constant and low for reaches having rain-dominated hydrology. Our model’s ability to capture the temporally-variable impact of snowmelt improved its capacity to predict stream temperature across diverse geography for multiple years. We fit the model to stream temperatures from 1993–2013 and predicted daily stream temperatures for ~261,200 free-flowing stream reaches across the Pacific Northwest USA from 1990–2021. Our daily model fit well (RMSE = 1.76; MAE = 1.32°C). Cross-validation suggested that the model produced useful predictions at unsampled locations across diverse landscapes and climate conditions. These stream temperature predictions will be useful to natural resource practitioners for effective conservation planning in lotic ecosystems and for managing species such as Pacific salmon. Our approach is straightforward and can be adapted to new spatial regions, time periods, or scenarios such as the anticipated decline in snowmelt with climate change.","PeriodicalId":93672,"journal":{"name":"PLOS water","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46732922","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}
Pub Date : 2023-08-30DOI: 10.1371/journal.pwat.0000107
T. Rayner, J. Conallin, C. Boys, Rodney Price
Modern fish-protection screens offer significant potential benefits for Australia. The Commonwealth and New South Wales (NSW) governments have invested over $30m to incentivise early adoption by water users. However, successful adoption requires an understanding of the motivations and abilities of water users, and strategies to overcome key barriers to adoption. Four practices have been used by the NSW Government to strengthen understanding of stakeholders and encourage participation in incentive programs by water users. These are: applying social learning concepts to screening programs; evaluating stakeholder needs; identifying and mapping stakeholders and their relationships; and, integrating science in communication and engagement. Analysing the motivations and abilities of water users revealed three key motivations: to save money, to protect fish, and to improve their reputation or social licence to operate. However, the ability of water users to install a fish-protection screen was found to vary significantly. A range of barriers have been identified by water users in NSW, and solutions or strategies developed to address each one. Today, in Australia, over 2,000 ML/day of water is being delivered through modern fish-protection screens, protecting ~580,000 native fish annually at 31 sites across NSW, Victoria and Queensland (60% being in NSW). Existing investment may see these numbers increase to ~7,000 ML/day and ~2 million native fish/yr by June 2024. The application of the methods to understand and strategically engage with stakeholders should enable improved uptake of screening technologies in other jurisdictions and areas of conservation concern into the future.
{"title":"Protecting fish and farms: Incentivising adoption of modern fish-protection screens for water pumps and gravity-fed diversions in Australia","authors":"T. Rayner, J. Conallin, C. Boys, Rodney Price","doi":"10.1371/journal.pwat.0000107","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pwat.0000107","url":null,"abstract":"Modern fish-protection screens offer significant potential benefits for Australia. The Commonwealth and New South Wales (NSW) governments have invested over $30m to incentivise early adoption by water users. However, successful adoption requires an understanding of the motivations and abilities of water users, and strategies to overcome key barriers to adoption. Four practices have been used by the NSW Government to strengthen understanding of stakeholders and encourage participation in incentive programs by water users. These are: applying social learning concepts to screening programs; evaluating stakeholder needs; identifying and mapping stakeholders and their relationships; and, integrating science in communication and engagement. Analysing the motivations and abilities of water users revealed three key motivations: to save money, to protect fish, and to improve their reputation or social licence to operate. However, the ability of water users to install a fish-protection screen was found to vary significantly. A range of barriers have been identified by water users in NSW, and solutions or strategies developed to address each one. Today, in Australia, over 2,000 ML/day of water is being delivered through modern fish-protection screens, protecting ~580,000 native fish annually at 31 sites across NSW, Victoria and Queensland (60% being in NSW). Existing investment may see these numbers increase to ~7,000 ML/day and ~2 million native fish/yr by June 2024. The application of the methods to understand and strategically engage with stakeholders should enable improved uptake of screening technologies in other jurisdictions and areas of conservation concern into the future.","PeriodicalId":93672,"journal":{"name":"PLOS water","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44313743","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}
Pub Date : 2023-08-30DOI: 10.1371/journal.pwat.0000112
Jason Williams
In the United States, the Clean Water Act (CWA) is the primary legislation driving surface water quality management. Its goal is to “restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation’s waters.” Section 305(b) of the CWA requires states to document CWA progress by reporting whether applicable water quality standards are achieved for all state waters every two years. Developing strategies for increasing the proportion of waters achieving standards requires diagnosing factors driving 305(b) data temporal trends. This analysis demonstrates how systematically analyzing 305(b) data in new ways can help document CWA progress (or lack thereof) and associated drivers. Idaho 305(b) data were used to evaluate the relative contribution of assessment progress and restoration to 2002–2022 Idaho 305(b) temporal trends. Assessment progress was defined as assessing unassessed waters and correcting assessment errors. Restoration was defined as changes from not achieving one or more standards to achieving all assessed standards because water quality improved. From 2002–2022, the percentage of Idaho stream kilometers achieving all assessed standards increased from 24% to 32%. Systematically evaluating reasons for stream status changes revealed this trend was driven primarily by assessment progress, specifically progress monitoring previously unassessed waters in good condition and correcting prior assessment errors. More stream km changed from impaired to unimpaired because prior assessment errors were corrected than because water quality improved. In each biennial 305(b) report ≤ 5% of all stream km changing status resulted from water quality improvement. As of 2022, more state stream km were impaired (39%) than unassessed (29%) and restoration success rates will likely become the primary driver of 305(b) temporal trends in the future. Systematically analyzing 305(b) data in new ways may help develop new empirically driven strategies for accelerating CWA progress and merits further investigation.
{"title":"Evaluating Clean Water Act progress drivers for Idaho rivers and streams 2002–2022","authors":"Jason Williams","doi":"10.1371/journal.pwat.0000112","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pwat.0000112","url":null,"abstract":"In the United States, the Clean Water Act (CWA) is the primary legislation driving surface water quality management. Its goal is to “restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation’s waters.” Section 305(b) of the CWA requires states to document CWA progress by reporting whether applicable water quality standards are achieved for all state waters every two years. Developing strategies for increasing the proportion of waters achieving standards requires diagnosing factors driving 305(b) data temporal trends. This analysis demonstrates how systematically analyzing 305(b) data in new ways can help document CWA progress (or lack thereof) and associated drivers. Idaho 305(b) data were used to evaluate the relative contribution of assessment progress and restoration to 2002–2022 Idaho 305(b) temporal trends. Assessment progress was defined as assessing unassessed waters and correcting assessment errors. Restoration was defined as changes from not achieving one or more standards to achieving all assessed standards because water quality improved. From 2002–2022, the percentage of Idaho stream kilometers achieving all assessed standards increased from 24% to 32%. Systematically evaluating reasons for stream status changes revealed this trend was driven primarily by assessment progress, specifically progress monitoring previously unassessed waters in good condition and correcting prior assessment errors. More stream km changed from impaired to unimpaired because prior assessment errors were corrected than because water quality improved. In each biennial 305(b) report ≤ 5% of all stream km changing status resulted from water quality improvement. As of 2022, more state stream km were impaired (39%) than unassessed (29%) and restoration success rates will likely become the primary driver of 305(b) temporal trends in the future. Systematically analyzing 305(b) data in new ways may help develop new empirically driven strategies for accelerating CWA progress and merits further investigation.","PeriodicalId":93672,"journal":{"name":"PLOS water","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47669971","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}
Pub Date : 2023-08-23DOI: 10.1371/journal.pwat.0000166
J. Rose, N. Hofstra, Erica Hollmann, P. Katsivelis, G. Medema, H. Murphy, C. Naughton, M. Verbyla
Microbial water quality is an integral to water security and is directly linked to human health, food safety, and ecosystem services. However, specifically pathogen data and even faecal indicator data (e.g., E. coli), are sparse and scattered, and their availability in different water bodies (e.g., groundwater) and in different socio-economic contexts (e.g., low- and middle-income countries) are inequitable. There is an urgent need to assess and collate microbial data across the world to evaluate the global state of ambient water quality, water treatment, and health risk, as time is running out to meet Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 by 2030. The overall goal of this paper is to illustrate the need and advocate for building a robust and useful microbial water quality database and consortium worldwide that will help achieve SDG 6. We summarize available data and existing databases on microbial water quality, discuss methods for producing new data on microbial water quality, and identify models and analytical tools that utilize microbial data to support decision making. This review identified global datasets (7 databases), and regional datasets for Africa (3 databases), Australia/New Zealand (6 databases), Asia (3 databases), Europe (7 databases), North America (12 databases) and South America (1 database). Data are missing for low- and middle-income countries. Increased laboratory capacity (due to COVID-19 pandemic) and molecular tools can identify potential pollution sources and monitor directly for pathogens. Models and analytical tools can support microbial water quality assessment by making geospatial and temporal inferences where data are lacking. A genomics, information technology (IT), and data revolution is upon us and presents unprecedented opportunities to develop software and devices for real-time logging, automated analysis, standardization, and modelling of microbial data to strengthen knowledge of global water quality. These opportunities should be leveraged for achieving SDG 6 around the world.
{"title":"Global microbial water quality data and predictive analytics: Key to health and meeting SDG 6","authors":"J. Rose, N. Hofstra, Erica Hollmann, P. Katsivelis, G. Medema, H. Murphy, C. Naughton, M. Verbyla","doi":"10.1371/journal.pwat.0000166","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pwat.0000166","url":null,"abstract":"Microbial water quality is an integral to water security and is directly linked to human health, food safety, and ecosystem services. However, specifically pathogen data and even faecal indicator data (e.g., E. coli), are sparse and scattered, and their availability in different water bodies (e.g., groundwater) and in different socio-economic contexts (e.g., low- and middle-income countries) are inequitable. There is an urgent need to assess and collate microbial data across the world to evaluate the global state of ambient water quality, water treatment, and health risk, as time is running out to meet Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 by 2030. The overall goal of this paper is to illustrate the need and advocate for building a robust and useful microbial water quality database and consortium worldwide that will help achieve SDG 6. We summarize available data and existing databases on microbial water quality, discuss methods for producing new data on microbial water quality, and identify models and analytical tools that utilize microbial data to support decision making. This review identified global datasets (7 databases), and regional datasets for Africa (3 databases), Australia/New Zealand (6 databases), Asia (3 databases), Europe (7 databases), North America (12 databases) and South America (1 database). Data are missing for low- and middle-income countries. Increased laboratory capacity (due to COVID-19 pandemic) and molecular tools can identify potential pollution sources and monitor directly for pathogens. Models and analytical tools can support microbial water quality assessment by making geospatial and temporal inferences where data are lacking. A genomics, information technology (IT), and data revolution is upon us and presents unprecedented opportunities to develop software and devices for real-time logging, automated analysis, standardization, and modelling of microbial data to strengthen knowledge of global water quality. These opportunities should be leveraged for achieving SDG 6 around the world.","PeriodicalId":93672,"journal":{"name":"PLOS water","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66578871","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}
Pub Date : 2023-08-22DOI: 10.1371/journal.pwat.0000163
Peter W. Gething, Sophie Ayling, Josses Mugabi, Odete Duarte Muximpua, Solomon Sitinadziwe Kagulura, George Joseph
Urbanization combined with climate change are exacerbating water scarcity for an increasing number of the world’s emerging cities. Water and sanitation infrastructure (WSS), which in the first place was largely built to cater only to a small subsector of developing city populations, is increasingly coming under excessive strain. In the rapidly growing cities of the developing world, infrastructure expansion does not always keep pace with population demand, leading to waterborne diseases such as cholera (Vibrio cholerae) and typhoid ( Salmonella serotype Typhi ). Funding gaps make targeting efficient spending on infrastructure essential for reducing the burden of disease. This paper applies geospatial analysis in Lusaka, Zambia for the cholera outbreak of October 2017—May 2018, to identify different WSS investment scenarios and their relative impact on reducing the risk of cholera in the city. The analysis uses cholera case location data and geospatial covariates, including the location of networked and non-networked WSS infrastructure, groundwater vulnerability, and drainage, to generate a high-resolution map of cholera risk across the city. The analysis presents scenarios of standalone or combined investments across sewerage expansion and maintenance; on-site sanitation improvements; piped water network expansion and quality; and ensuring the safety of point-source water. It identifies the investment most strongly correlated with the largest reduction in cholera risk as the provision of flush-to-sewer infrastructure citywide. However, it also considers the trade-offs in terms of financial cost vs. health benefits and takes note of where the next highest health benefits could be achieved for a much lower cost. Finally, the analysis was conducted during the restructuring of an existing World Bank investment, the Lusaka Sanitation Program (LSP), and identifies the most efficient investment at the time as partial sanitation scale-up and investment in piped water in wards where cholera risk was the highest.
{"title":"Cholera risk in Lusaka: A geospatial analysis to inform improved water and sanitation provision","authors":"Peter W. Gething, Sophie Ayling, Josses Mugabi, Odete Duarte Muximpua, Solomon Sitinadziwe Kagulura, George Joseph","doi":"10.1371/journal.pwat.0000163","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pwat.0000163","url":null,"abstract":"Urbanization combined with climate change are exacerbating water scarcity for an increasing number of the world’s emerging cities. Water and sanitation infrastructure (WSS), which in the first place was largely built to cater only to a small subsector of developing city populations, is increasingly coming under excessive strain. In the rapidly growing cities of the developing world, infrastructure expansion does not always keep pace with population demand, leading to waterborne diseases such as cholera (Vibrio cholerae) and typhoid ( Salmonella serotype Typhi ). Funding gaps make targeting efficient spending on infrastructure essential for reducing the burden of disease. This paper applies geospatial analysis in Lusaka, Zambia for the cholera outbreak of October 2017—May 2018, to identify different WSS investment scenarios and their relative impact on reducing the risk of cholera in the city. The analysis uses cholera case location data and geospatial covariates, including the location of networked and non-networked WSS infrastructure, groundwater vulnerability, and drainage, to generate a high-resolution map of cholera risk across the city. The analysis presents scenarios of standalone or combined investments across sewerage expansion and maintenance; on-site sanitation improvements; piped water network expansion and quality; and ensuring the safety of point-source water. It identifies the investment most strongly correlated with the largest reduction in cholera risk as the provision of flush-to-sewer infrastructure citywide. However, it also considers the trade-offs in terms of financial cost vs. health benefits and takes note of where the next highest health benefits could be achieved for a much lower cost. Finally, the analysis was conducted during the restructuring of an existing World Bank investment, the Lusaka Sanitation Program (LSP), and identifies the most efficient investment at the time as partial sanitation scale-up and investment in piped water in wards where cholera risk was the highest.","PeriodicalId":93672,"journal":{"name":"PLOS water","volume":"7 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135621386","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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