Environmental impacts of complex effluent release to a model prairie aquatic network

向水环境中排放化学成分复杂的市政和工业废水是一个全球性问题，随着人口增长和用水量的增加，这个问题正在迅速增加。污水排放对水生生态系统具有复杂和模糊的影响，有可能对公众健康产生负面影响。为了解决这些不确定性，我们设计了一个多学科研究计划，以确定阿尔伯塔省南部一个重要的社会经济分水岭生态系统对复杂污水负荷的反应。与许多接受污水的流域一样，位于小弓河上游流域的弗兰克湖湿地代表着一个复杂的管理方案。与其他流域一样，该系统由于长期集约使用土地以及农业、工业和市政污水的输入，面临着生境和水质的退化。人们担心营养物质和化学物质的输入可能会对湿地、河流和下游多用途水库产生影响，这些营养物质和化学物质的特征很大程度上没有确定。我们的项目汇集了来自学术界、工业界和市政部门的合作伙伴，以产生新的信息和数据来指导水资源管理，并回答流域研究中有关污水去向、影响和湿地在污水修复中的作用等紧迫问题。如果管理得当，小弓河上游流域的水生生境将在未来几年继续提供价值数十年的生态系统服务，这意味着为利益攸关方提供数百万美元的服务。在这里，我们将填补知识空白，向管理层通报这一具有重要经济意义的分水岭。反过来，这将有助于最大限度地提高水处理价值，以加强艾伯塔省南部和整个加拿大的其他重要生态系统服务。这一研究项目为世界各地类似的污水接收流域提供了一个重要的尖端模式。

The release of chemically complex municipal and industrial effluents into aquatic environments is a global-scale issue that is rapidly increasing with population growth and increasing water consumption. Effluent release has complex and poorly-defined impacts on aquatic ecosystems, with potential to negatively impact public health. To address these uncertainties, we have designed a multidisciplinary research program that defines organismal to ecosystem responses to complex effluent loading in a socio-economically important watershed in southern Alberta. Like many effluent-receiving watersheds, the Frank Lake wetland in the Upper Little Bow River watershed represents a complex management scenario. Like other watersheds, this system is faced with degradation of habitat and water quality due to its long history of intensive land-use, and inputs of agro-industrial and municipal effluent. There is concern about the effects that inputs of nutrients and chemicals, which are largely uncharacterized, might have in the wetland, the river, and the downstream multi-use reservoir. Our project brings together partners from academic, industrial, and municipal sectors to generate novel information and data to guide water resource management, and answer pressing questions in watershed research regarding effluent fate, impacts, and the role of wetlands in effluent remediation. If well managed, aquatic habitats in the upper Little Bow River watershed will continue to provide decades-worth of ecosystem services in the coming years, which represents millions of dollars of services to stakeholders. Here, we will fill knowledge gaps to inform the management of this economically-important watershed. In turn this will help to maximize water treatment value to enhance other important ecosystem services in southern Alberta and throughout Canada. This research project serves as an important and cutting-edge model for similar effluent-receiving watersheds worldwide.