Development of Methodologies for Improving Water Quality Management

对水质和生态系统退化的高度关注导致人们对水质管理的兴趣增加。一般而言，水质管理的整体目标是维持或改善水体的现有状况，从而为食水消费、灌溉、工业和康乐用途提供优质食水。在河流中，两类主要因素：自然环境因素和人为变化(如土地利用和气候的变化)，对地表水质量有很大影响。特别是，自然过程，如水文和气象过程，也受到人类活动的影响，对地表水质量的可变性起着重要作用。此外，支配自然过程的因素在一年中和从一年到下一年都是高度可变的。因此，各种不同的可变过程的复杂组合导致了显著改变水质的不同机制。 正确识别和充分了解这些高度可变和相互关联的过程对于成功的水质管理至关重要。然而，在水质统计分析和建模中适当地考虑关键影响因素的不同作用，以帮助从业者做出适当的管理决策，是一个巨大的挑战。因此，研究新的办法，明确考虑影响因素的不同作用，并将其纳入管理战略，将为发展更负责任和更有效的水质管理作出重大而有价值的贡献。 这项研究试图以定量的方式揭示环境因素以及人为活动对水质的影响以及如何影响。将开发新的方法，在水质数据的统计分析中考虑到水质及其主要影响因素之间的相互关系。多因素交互作用下的水质时空变化将在多个变量的背景下定量描述。随后，将把关键影响因素的作用纳入制定更知情的水质管理办法，以查明使水质恶化的干扰因素。此外，将开发基于状况的水质模型，以预测在不同环境条件下给定污染物输入的影响。还将制定针对点源(如废水处理厂的污水)和非点源(如暴雨径流)的水文相关污染物负荷管理，以考虑河流在不同水流条件下的同化能力。 拟议的研究计划将产生方法和技术，有助于加强我们对各种关键因素与水质变化之间的相互关系的理解。所开发的定量测量这些因素对水质的影响的方法将为正确解释复杂的水质现象提供一条可行的途径。此外，将这些因素的作用纳入管理实践，对于建立更负责任和更具成本效益的水质管理至关重要。

Heightened concerns over water quality and ecosystem degradation have led to increased interest in water quality management. Broadly speaking, the overall objective of water quality management is to maintain or improve the existing condition of water bodies, thereby providing quality water for potable consumption, irrigation, and industrial and recreational uses. In rivers, two types of major factors: natural environmental factors and human-induced changes (e.g. changes in land use and climate), considerably influence surface water quality. In particular, the natural processes, such as hydrological and meteorological processes, which are also affected by human activities, play a significant role in the variability of surface water quality. Furthermore, the factors that govern natural processes are highly variable throughout the year and from one year to the next. The complex combination of a variety of different variable processes consequently results in distinct mechanisms that substantially alter water quality. Correct identification and sufficient understanding of these highly variable and interlinked processes are of crucial importance to successful water quality management. It is, however, a great challenge to appropriately account for the varying roles of the key influencing factors in water quality statistical analysis and modeling that can assist practitioners in making proper management decisions. Research on new approaches, where the varying roles of the influencing factors are explicitly considered and integrated in management strategies, would hence provide a significant and valuable contribution towards developing more responsible and effective water quality management. This research attempts to uncover what and how environmental factors as well as anthropogenic activities affect water quality in a quantitative way. New approaches will be developed to take into account the interconnections between water quality and its key influencing factors into the statistical analysis of water quality data. As a result, the spatial and temporal variations of water quality under the influence of multiple interacting factors will be quantitatively delineated in a multivariate setting. The role of the key influencing factors will subsequently be incorporated into developing a better-informed water quality management to identify the disturbances that degrade water quality. Moreover, regime-based water quality models will be developed to predict the effects of given inputs of pollutants under varying environmental conditions. Hydrologically dependent pollutant loading management for point (e.g., effluent from wastewater treatment plants) and non-point (e.g., storm water runoff) sources of pollution will also be developed to account for the assimilation capacity of streams under varying flow conditions. The proposed research program will result in methods and techniques that will help strengthening our understanding of the interrelationship between various key factors and water quality variations. The developed approaches for quantitatively measuring the effects of these factors on water quality will present a viable path to correctly explain the complex water quality phenomena. Furthermore, the integration of the roles of these factors into management practices will be essential for establishing more responsible and cost-effective water quality management.