scholarly journals Evaluation of Indicators for Cyanobacterial Risk in 108 Temperate Lakes Using 23 Years of Environmental Monitoring Data

Author(s):  
JING LI ◽  
Kenenth M Person ◽  
Heidi Pekar ◽  
Daniel Jansson

Abstract Background: Cyanobacterial blooms are of increasing concern for drinking water supply. Cyanobacterial risk in 108 temperate freshwater lakes were examined for drinking water supply. Results: In Sweden, a survey among drinking water producers showed that the sense of urgency was little. At 60 % of the Swedish drinking water treatment plants, operators lacked monitoring strategies. The study shows that blooms can produce a variety of toxins such as anatoxins, cylindrospermopsins, microcystins and saxitoxins. We confirmed the anthropogenic activities’ impact on cyanobacterial risk and evaluated that total phosphorus (TP) concentration can be used to indicate cyanobacterial risk by applying non-linear quantile regression for 108 Swedish monitoring lakes.Conclusion: We suggest that TP concentration should be investigated thoroughly to provide important knowledge which can be used to set nutrient targets to sustain safe drinking water supply and recreational services.TP should be targeted lower than 15 μg L-1, allowing 10 % exceedance of WHO Drinking Water Alert Level 1.

2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Li ◽  
K. M. Persson ◽  
H. Pekar ◽  
D. Jansson

Abstract Background Cyanobacterial blooms are of increasing concern for drinking water supply. In Sweden, a survey among drinking water producers showed that the sense of urgency was little. At 60% of the Swedish drinking water treatment plants, operators lacked monitoring strategies. To get a picture of the size of the problem the presence of cyanobacterial risk in 108 Swedish lakes was evaluated from 23 years of environmental monitoring data. The drivers and indicators for cyanobacterial growth were investigated by analyzing water quality in 9 lakes that have more frequent cyanobacteria bio-volume above the WHO drinking water alert level 1: 0.2 mm3L−1. Results The study shows that the most common species in those lakes are Anabaena/Dolichospermum and Aphanizomenon followed by Microcystis, Woronichinia and Planktothrix, which can produce a variety of toxins such as anatoxins, cylindrospermopsins, microcystins and saxitoxins, supported by literature study. Our results show that cyanobacterial risk in those problematic 9 lakes are mainly nutrients driven with possibly contribution of increased organic matter. By applying non-linear quantile regression with total phosphorus (TP) as an example, we demonstrated that certain drivers such as TP can be useful for cyanobacterial risk assessment and provide control measures by setting nutrients targets. We also evidenced that cyanobacterial peaks presented at low TN:TP ratio while not necessarily vice versa. We also further evaluated that chlorophyll-a and transparency might be suitable as indicators for cyanobacterial blooms in certain lakes, while for most of the lakes, their connection is low. Conclusion Nutrients are main drivers for higher cyanobacterial occurrence in the 9 lakes. We suggest TP concentrations should be investigated thoroughly to provide important knowledge which can be used to set nutrient targets to sustain safe drinking water supply and recreational services. The complexity of indicating cyanobacterial risk in a local condition was also highlighted in this study and future study is suggested. To classify different types of lake and identify their drivers and the similarities of species composition changes in those lakes will be future studied.


2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jing Li ◽  
Linda Parkefelt ◽  
Kenneth M Persson ◽  
Heidi Pekar

Cyanobacteria in fresh water can cause serious threats to drinking water supplies. Managing cyanobacterial blooms particularly at small drinking water treatment plants is challenging. Because large amount of cyanobacteria may cause clogging in the treatment process and various cyanotoxins are hard to remove, while they may cause severe health problems. There is lack of instructions of what cyanobacteria/toxin amount should trigger what kind of actions for drink-ing water management except for Microcystins. This demands a Cyanobacteria Management Tool (CMT) to help regula-tors/operators to improve cyanobacteria/cyanotoxin monitoring in surface waters for drinking water supply. This project proposes a CMT tool, including selecting proper indicators for quick cyanobacteria monitoring and verifying quick analysis methods for cyanobacteria and cyanotoxin. This tool is suggested for raw water management regarding cyano-bacteria monitoring in lakes, especially in boreal forest climate. In addition, it applies to regions that apply international WHO standards for water management. In Swedish context, drinking water producers which use raw water from lakes that experience cyanobacterial blooms, need to create a monitoring routine for cyanobacteria/cyanotoxin and to monitor beyond such as Anatoxins, Cylindrospermopsins and Saxitoxins. Using the proposed CMT tool will increase water safety at surface water treatment plants substantially by introducing three alerting points for actions. CMT design for each local condition should integrate adaptive monitoring program.


2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 922-930 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Richard ◽  
E. Mayr ◽  
M. Zunabovic ◽  
R. Allabashi ◽  
R. Perfler

The implementation and evaluation of biological nitrification as a possible treatment option for the small-scale drinking water supply of a rural Upper Austrian community was investigated. The drinking water supply of this community (average system input volume: 20 m3/d) is based on the use of deep anaerobic groundwater with a high ammonium content of geogenic origin (up to 5 mg/l) which must be treated to prevent the formation of nitrites in the drinking water supply system. This paper describes the implementation and operation of biological nitrification despite several constraints including space availability, location and financial and manpower resources. A pilot drinking water treatment plant, including biological nitrification implemented in sand filters, was designed and constructed for a maximum treatment capacity of 1.2 m3/h. Online monitoring of selected physicochemical parameters has provided continuous treatment performance data. Treatment performance of the plant was evaluated under standard operation as well as in the case of selected malfunction events.


Water ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 2653
Author(s):  
Minhaz Farid Ahmed ◽  
Mazlin Bin Mokhtar ◽  
Lubna Alam ◽  
Che Abd Rahim Mohamed ◽  
Goh Choo Ta

Prolonged persistence of toxic cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr) and lead (Pb) in the aquatic environment are due to its nonbiodegradable characteristic. A few studies have reported higher concentrations of these metals in the transboundary Langat River, Malaysia. This study determined the spatial and temporal distributions of Cd, Cr and Pb concentrations (2005–2015) in the Langat River along with assessing the status of these metals in the drinking water supply chain at the basin. Water samples were collected once in 2015 from the drinking water supply chain, i.e., from the river, treated water at plants, taps and filtration water at households. Determined mean concentrations of Cd, Cr and Pb by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry in the Langat River were within the drinking water quality standard of Malaysia and the WHO, except for the Pb (9.99 ± 1.40 µg/L) concentration, which was at the maximum limit, 10 µg/L. The spatial and temporal distribution of these metals’ concentrations indicate dilution of it downstream, along with the increasing trend in rainfall and water flow, especially during the northeast monsoon. Significant correlation and regression analysis of the Cd, Cr and Pb concentrations also indicate that the sources of this metal pollution are mainly the natural weathering of minerals along with anthropogenic activities in the basin. The determined overall water quality of the Langat River is categorized Class IIA (i.e., clean), which requires conventional treatment before drinking; however, the maximum removal efficiency of these metals by the plants at the basin was about 90.17%. Therefore, the proactive leadership roles of the local authorities will be appropriate to reduce the pollution of this river as well as introducing a two-layer water filtration system at the Langat River Basin to accelerate the achievement of a sustainable drinking water supply.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 39-48
Author(s):  
Hayder Mohammed Issa ◽  
Reem Ahmed Alrwai

Safe source of drinking water is always considered as an essential factor in water supply for cities and urban areas. As a part of this issue, drinking water quality is monitored via a useful scheme: developing drinking water quality index DWQI. DWQI is preferably used as it summarizes the whole physicochemical and bacteriological properties of a drinking water sample into a single and simple term. In this study, an evaluation was made for three drinking water treatment plants DWTPs named: Efraz 1, Efraz 2 and Efraz 3 that supply drinking water to Erbil City. The assessment was made by testing thirteen physicochemical and two bacteriological parameters during a long period of (2003 – 2017). It has been found that turbidity, electrical conductivity EC, total alkalinity, total hardness, total coliform and fecal coliform have more influence on drinking water quality. DWQI results showed that the quality of drinking water supplied by the three DWTPs in Erbil City fallen within good level. Except various occasional periods where the quality was varying from good to fair. The quality of the drinking water supply never reached the level of marginal or poor over the time investigated. The applied hierarchical clustering analysis HCA classifies the drinking water dataset into three major clusters, reflecting diverse sources of the physicochemical and bacteriological parameter: natural, agriculture and urban discharges.


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