Chemical and toxicological characterization of stormwater quality in the City of Saskatoon

来自降水事件和融雪的水作为雨水从城市景观中流出，并被收集在雨水管道中。城市化和土壤的封闭导致了雨水量的增加。与此同时，全球雨水质量下降，在雨水中检测到高浓度的污染物，如营养物（氮、磷、有机物）、病原体（细菌和病毒）、盐、金属以及多环芳烃和石油烃等有机化学品。这些数量的增加和同时出现的质量的下降给雨水管理带来了一些挑战，这些挑战一方面涉及有效收集和分流雨水以保护市政基础设施，和保护接收环境免受可能对人类和环境健康构成风险的潜在有毒沃茨的影响。以前的研究已经确定了有希望的策略，当雨水在释放到环境中之前，雨水管与卫生下水道分开，雨水管收集了大量的汞，但对导致接收环境脉冲式暴露于高水平污染的降水事件的时间动态仍知之甚少。萨斯卡通市是萨斯喀彻温省最大的自治市。有超过100个独立的雨水管出口，其中许多未经处理直接排入南萨斯喀彻温河。先前的研究使我们更好地了解了河流的排放情况，并有助于确定进一步调查的关键排放口。然而，这项研究是有限的调查排污口污染物的数量和可靠的数据来了解这些影响的时间动态是迫切需要的。为了弥合这一差距，该研究项目将首次生成萨斯卡通市雨水质量的详细化学和毒理学概况。这项研究将对城市雨水对河流生态系统的污染风险进行更可靠的评估，并帮助该市通过改善市政雨水管理为未来的法规做好准备。

Water originating from precipitation events and snowmelt runs off the urban landscape as stormwater and is collected in storm sewers. Increasing urbanization and sealing of soils have resulted in increased quantities of stormwater. At the same time, stormwater quality has dropped globally, and high concentrations of pollutants such as nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus, organic matter), pathogens (bacteria and viruses), salts, metals, as well as organic chemicals such as polyaromatic and petroleum hydrocarbons have been detected in stormwater. These increases in quantity and concurrent decreases in quality result in several challenges for stormwater management related to the effective collection and diversion of stormwater to protect municipal infrastructure on the one hand, and protection of the receiving environment from potentially toxic waters that may pose a human and environmental health risks.Previous research has identified promising strategies to provide primary treatment of stormwater when it is collected in storm sewers that are separate from sanitary sewers prior to its release into the environment, but much remains unknown about the temporal dynamics of precipitation events that result in a pulsed exposure of the receiving environment to high levels of pollution. The City of Saskatoon is the largest municipality in Saskatchewan. There are over one hundred outfalls of separated storm sewers, many of which discharge directly into the South Saskatchewan River without treatment. Previous research has resulted in a better understanding of the discharges to the river and helped to identify key outfalls for further investigation. However, this research was limited in the number of investigated outfalls contaminants and, and reliable data to understand the temporal dynamics of these impacts are urgently needed. To bridge this gap, this research project will for the first time generate a detailed chemical and toxicological profile of stormwater quality in the City of Saskatoon. This research will result in a more reliable assessment of the risks of pollution from urban stormwater to the river ecosystem and help the City to prepare for future regulations through improved municipal stormwater management.