Climate-Smart Stormwater Management

Increased precipitation and risk of flooding are major effects due to climate change that Swedish municipalities need to consider, while facing an ongoing growth in population and densification of urban areas. In this context, urban stormwater management represents a growing challenge. The vulnerability of the society towards climate change depends on the capability of the city to responds to environmental issues.This report presents the challenges and the needs for the implementation of sustainable stormwater solutions encountered in the urban planning process for the city of Gothenburg. The decision making process can be facilitated by the adoption of a stormwater toolbox, which functionalities are designed to support the stakeholders at each step of the planning process. The modules of the toolbox should be designed around a collaboration platform that assists with transparent information flows and allocation of responsibilities. The specific modules (e.g. hydrology, cost-benefit analysis, experience database) should support the needs along the different phases in the process.This study was financially supported by Climate KIC. The Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) are partnerships set up by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology, EIT, that bring together businesses, research centers and universities with the purpose of developing innovative products and services, starting new companies and training a new generation of entrepreneurs. EIT Climate-KIC\u27s mission is to bring together, inspire and empower a dynamic community to build a zero carbon economy and climate resilient society and to enable Europe to lead the global transformation towards sustainability

Importance of Internal Factors for Community-Managed Water and Wastewater Systems in Cochabamba, Bolivia

Community management is often seen as part of the solution to increase access to drinking water and wastewater management where municipal services are lacking. This article intends to increase the knowledge regarding self-organized communitymanaged water and wastewater systems in urban and peri-urban areas. A theory-building case-study approach, including three different neighbourhoods in Bolivia and their respective communitybased organizations, was selected. Four prerequisites – leadership, agreed vision, collective action and management – and associated enabling factors connected to three distinct planning and management phases were found to be of major importance for community-managed water and wastewater systems

A comparative study of macroinvertebrate biodiversity in highway stormwater ponds and natural ponds

The use of stormwater ponds along the highways is shown to be an effective alternative to conventional systems, which are usually sewers. These ponds have the potential to combine their primary function of pollution and peak flow control with the promotion of biodiversity. The present study focuses on comparing natural and highway stormwater ponds in terms of environmental conditions and biodiversity of macroinvertebrate communities. Twelve highway stormwater ponds and nineteen natural ponds (located within or in the vicinity of cultivated landscape) were explored for the number of taxa, community composition, and selected environmental variables: pH, conductivity, pond surface area, the number of ponds within 1 km radius, and the distance to nearest neighboring pond. Highway stormwater ponds showed much higher conductivity, which is a good proxy for chloride concentration and highway pollutants. In addition, the surface area of stormwater ponds was almost twice as big as that of natural ponds. The biological community composition was very different between the two types of ponds, and the number of taxa was slightly higher in the highway stormwater ponds. The most important variables responsible for the variation in the biological community composition were conductivity, pond surface area, and the number of ponds within 1 km radius. This study supports that, in addition to their role in pollution and peak flow control, stormwater ponds have the potential to provide a habitat that may otherwise be unavailable along the highway

Indicators for sustainability assessment of small-scale wastewater treatment plants in low and lower-middle income countries

Wastewater treatment in low and lower-middle income countries is often limited by lack of local technical\ua0expertise, institutional capacity, and financial resources, making it challenging to reach SDG6-target 6.3, i.e.\ua0halving the proportion of untreated wastewater. Several studies suggest sets of sustainability indicators for\ua0assessing the planning and/or operation of WWTPs. However, existing standard indicators are typically focused\ua0on the context of high and upper-middle income countries, whereas low and lower-middle income countries face\ua0other types of issues. The development of a contextualized set of relevant and effective sustainability indicators to\ua0support the planning and/or operation of small-scale WWTPs in low and lower-middle income countries is crucial.\ua0This study develops a contextualized set of sustainability indicators for small-scale wastewater treatment plants inBolivia, which is classified as a lower-middle income country. Indicators were identified using a literature review\ua0combined with empirical studies using focus groups with managers and operators, as well as, workshops with\ua0experts. The aim of the focus groups and workshops was to acquire an understanding of the local context and\ua0identify relevant sustainability indicators. The practical investigation took place at five sites in Cochabamba,\ua0Bolivia. The results suggest that sustainability assessment of WWTPs in low and lower-middle income countries\ua0should emphasize the institutional dimension (e.g. Institutional capacity, Interactions, and Information) and the\ua0technical dimension (e.g. Sewage network functionality and Expertise) alongside indicators in the social, economic\ua0and environmental dimensions

Wastewater management in developing countries: Bolivia case studies

Wastewater management in developing countries still is a challenge, especially in small towns. The aim of this study is to understand technical and social factors related to management. Thus, the context surrounding the performance of six treatment plants in rural areas of Cochabamba, Bolivia were investigated: three small treatment plants (2000-10000 p.e.; flow>5L/s) and three very small treatment plants (<2000 p.e.; flow<5L/s). Performance of the plants was measured based on the removal of TSS, BOD5 and Fecal Coliforms. Management data was collected through semi-structured interviews with water association managers and users. Results found that inappropriate design and type of technology, lack of operational expertise and lack of financial resources were the main factors related to low performance. Moreover, lack of financial resources is linked to the awareness of users on the importance of having the service and willingness to pay for their adequate functioning

Estimation of measurement uncertainties for the DGT passive sampler used for determination of copper in

Diffusion-based passive samplers are increasingly used for water quality monitoring. While the overall method robustness and reproducibility for passive samplers in water are widely reported, there has been a lack of a detailed description of uncertainty sources. In this paper an uncertainty budget for the determination of fully labile Cu in water using a DGT passive sampler is presented. Uncertainty from the estimation of effective cross-sectional diffusion area and the instrumental determination of accumulated mass of analyte are the most significant sources of uncertainty, while uncertainties from contamination and the estimation of diffusion coefficient are negligible. The results presented highlight issues with passive samplers which are important to address if overall method uncertainty is to be reduced and effective strategies to reduce overall method uncertainty are presented

Impact of environmental factors on aquatic biodiversity in roadside stormwater ponds

Constructed stormwater ponds mitigate runoff volumes and pollution, and provide other ecosystem services, such as supporting biodiversity, but these services attracted relatively less attention. The impacts of the pollution levels in the water column and sediments, the physical characteristics of ponds, and the presence of amphibians on the macroinvertebrate community composition and biodiversity were explored in twelve stormwater ponds in Norway. Also, the similarities between macroinvertebrate, zooplankton and plant communities were explored. Most of the taxa displayed in the ordination diagram were positively correlated with the pond size and the number of neighbouring ponds, and negatively correlated with the pollution levels in the water column and sediments. However, no statistically significant impacts on the number of taxa and Shannon index were observed. There were low similarities between the macroinvertebrate and zooplankton community compositions as well as between the plant and macroinvertebrate community compositions in the stormwater ponds. We observed a significant positive correlation between the number of plant and of zooplankton taxa, and a weak non-significant positive correlation between the number of plant and of macroinvertebrate taxa. Overall, the explanatory variables had a significant impact on the community composition, but not on the number of taxa nor Shannon index

Physical, genetic and functional interactions between the eisosome protein Pil1 and the MBOAT O-acyltransferase Gup1

The Saccharomyces cerevisiae MBOAT O-acyltransferase Gup1 is involved in many processes, including cell wall and membrane composition and integrity, and acetic acid-induced cell death. Gup1 was previously shown to interact physically with the mitochondrial membrane VDAC (Voltage-Dependent Anion Channel) protein Por1 and the ammonium transceptor Mep2. By co-immunoprecipitation, the eisosome core component Pil1 was identified as a novel physical interaction partner of Gup1. The expression of PIL1 and Pil1 protein levels were found to be unaffected by GUP1 deletion. In ∆gup1 cells, Pil1 was distributed in dots (likely representing eisosomes) in the membrane, identically to wt cells. However, ∆gup1 cells presented 50% less Pil1-GFP dots/eisosomes, suggesting that Gup1 is important for eisosome formation. The two proteins also interact genetically in the maintenance of cell wall integrity, and during arsenite and acetic acid exposure. We show that Δgup1 Δpil1 cells take up more arsenite than wt and are extremely sensitive to arsenite and to acetic acid treatments. The latter causes a severe apoptotic wt-like cell death phenotype, epistatically reverting the ∆gup1 necrotic type of death. Gup1 and Pil1 are thus physically, genetically and functionally connected.JT and MA-R are Ph.D. students from FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia), Portugal (grant numbers SFRH/BD/76025/2011 and SFRH/BD/145354/2019). This work was supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, Initial Training Network GLYCOPHARM (PITN-GA-2012-317297), and by the strategic programme UID/BIA/04050/2013 (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007569) funded by national funds through the FCT and by the Eropean Regional Development Fund, through the COMPETE 2020. Work in the MJT laboratory was supported by the Swedish Research Council (grant numbers 621-2014-4597 and 348-2014-4296)

Closing the food loop – guidelines and criteria for improving nutrient management

As global consumption expands, the world is increasingly facing threats to resource availability and food security. To meet future food demands, agricultural resource efficiency needs to be optimized for both water and nutrients. Policy makers should start to radically rethink nutrient management across the entire food chain. Closing the food loop by recycling nutrients in food waste and excreta is an important way of limiting the use of mineral nutrients, as well as improving national and global food security. This article presents a framework for sustainable nutrient management and discusses the responsibility of four key stakeholder groups—agriculture, the food industry, consumers, and waste management—for achieving an effective food loop. In particular, we suggest a number of criteria, policy actions, and supporting strategies based on a cross-sectoral application of the waste hierarchy

Assessment of drinking water quality at the tap using fluorescence spectroscopy

Treated drinking water may become contaminated while travelling in the distribution system on the way to consumers. Elevated dissolved organic matter (DOM) at the tap relative to the water leaving the treatment plant is a potential indicator of contamination, and can be measured sensitively, inexpensively and potentially on-line via fluorescence and absorbance spectroscopy. Detecting elevated DOM requires potential contamination events to be distinguished from natural fluctuations in the system, but how much natural variation to expect in a stable distribution system is unknown. In this study, relationships between DOM optical properties, microbial indicator organisms and trace elements were investigated for households connected to a biologically-stable drinking water distribution system. Across the network, humic-like fluorescence intensities showed limited variation (RSD = 3.5-4.4%), with half of measured variation explained by interactions with copper. After accounting for quenching by copper, fluorescence provided a very stable background signal (RSD