Improving management and protection of drinking water supplies and environmental sustainability in urban settings

淡水生态系统的管理、保护和恢复是全球范围内的核心环境问题。特别是，水管理者必须应对城市的快速发展及其对水体的负面影响。这个多学科项目围绕四个研究轴线建立，旨在为城市水资源管理者提供更多工具，以更好地监测和保护水生生态系统，特别是城市环境。Axis 1的目的是通过将生物监测数据(基于藻类的)和与人类活动有关的风险结合起来，对饮用水供应脆弱性进行分水岭规模的评估。简而言之，轴心1的目的是在分水岭范围内将生物完整性数据和土地利用信息结合起来，为市政当局提供更全面的供水脆弱性情况。对饮用水水源的一个重大威胁是城市雨水径流，2号、3号和4号轴线就是为了解决这个问题而设计的。雨水滞留池(SWRP)是减少城市径流的一种常见缓解做法，Axis 2旨在确定它们的积极结果(污染物滞留)，并评估其流出物上游和下游的接收环境的生物完整性。轴3的目标是评估城市可持续发展项目的生物多样性，而轴4的目标是以美元估算可持续发展项目提供的生态系统服务的货币价值。最终，这个项目的目标是对建设绿色基础设施给纳税人带来的好处进行评估，然后将其用作经济、社会、政治和生态话语和决策的工具。更好地管理雨水径流是饮用水水源地保护的一个关键方面。拟议的研究计划将培训四名硕士研究生、两名本科生和一名技术员。

Management, protection, and rehabilitation of freshwater ecosystems are central environmental concerns on a global scale. In particular, water managers must deal with rapid urban development and their associated negative consequences on water bodies. This multi-disciplinary project is built around four research axes that all aim at providing urban water managers with additional tools to better monitor and conserve aquatic ecosystems, with a particular focus on urban environments. The purpose of Axis 1 is to develop a watershed-scale assessment of drinking water supply vulnerability by coupling biomonitoring data (algae based) and human activity related risks. Simply stated, the aim of Axis 1 is to combine biological integrity data and land use information, at the watershed scale, to provide municipalities with a more complete portrait of water supply vulnerability. One significant threat to drinking water sources is urban stormwater runoff and Axes 2, 3, and 4 are designed to address this problem. Stormwater retention ponds (SWRPs) are a common mitigation practice to reduce urban runoff and Axis 2 aims to determine their positive outcomes (contaminant retention) and to evaluate the biological integrity of receiving environments upstream and downstream of their effluents. The objective of Axis 3 is to estimate the biodiversity in urban SWRPs, while the aim of Axis 4 is to estimate the monetary value, in dollars, of ecosystem services provided by SWRPs. Ultimately, the goal of this project is to provide an assessment of the benefits that constructed green infrastructures provide to taxpayers, which could then be used as a tool in economic, social, political, and ecological discourse and decision-making. Better management of stormwater runoff is one key aspect of drinking water source protection. The proposed research program will lead to the training of four Master's students, two undergraduate trainees, and one technician.