Achieving sustainable water and land use systems in highly developed tropical landscapes
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 15545481 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Pedro Ribeiro Piffer (0000-0001-9706-4745, Columbia University, corresponding author), Leandro Reverberi Tambosi (0000-0001-5486-7310, Universidade de São Paulo), Miren Uriarte (0000-0002-0484-0758, Columbia University), Maria Uriarte |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 17 |
| Issue | 9 |
| Pages | 094019-094019 |
| Publication date | 2022-08-18 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Environmental Research Letters (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1748-9326 • E-ISSN: 1748-9326 |
| Publisher | IOP Publishing (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1088/1748-9326/ac8ab6 |
| OpenAlex | W4293067722 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 45 |
Water quality degradation from human related activities has become a pressing global issue, putting water security at risk around the world. Land use decisions can severely degrade stream water quality, compromising water supply and increasing water treatment costs. Here we examine changes in water quality over 20 years and their association with land use, urbanization, and sewage treatment in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. We also consider how a severe drought in 2014–2015 affected water quality, uncovering the potential impacts of a changing climate on water treatment costs. We analyzed water quality data between 2000 and 2019 from 230 monitoring stations focusing on seven metrics: dissolved oxygen, biological oxygen demand, total nitrogen, total phosphorus, turbidity, total dissolved solids, and fecal coliforms. We first calculated the number of times that metrics exceeded the legal thresholds and then assessed if metrics were improving or deteriorating over time. Across all stations, a large proportion of stream water samples failed to comply to the legal standards for human consumption for at least one water quality metric. This proportion was highest for total dissolved solids (30.7%) and total phosphorus (42.8%), with fewer samples exceeding the threshold for turbidity and dissolved oxygen. Deteriorating water quality trends over time were prevalent for dissolved solids (33.33%) and total nitrogen (52.45%), while dissolved oxygen exhibited the highest percentage of improving trends across watersheds (43.63%). Moreover, we observed that four of the seven metrics analyzed deteriorated during the 2014–2015 drought. Urbanization and agricultural activity led to deterioration of water quality, while improvement in sewage treatment infrastructure improved water quality across watersheds. The decline in water quality observed in the region, especially during the recent drought, highlights the need to develop land use management strategies to protect water quality and reduce growing costs of water treatment in the state
Biochemical oxygen demand · Biology · Chemical oxygen demand · Hydrology (agriculture · Sewage · Sewage treatment · Suspended solids · Total dissolved solids · Total suspended solids · Turbidity · Wastewater · Water quality · Water resource management · Water resources · Water security · Environmental Science · Hydrology and Watershed Management Studies · Urban Stormwater Management Solutions · Water Quality and Pollution Assessment · Ecology · Environmental Engineering
The superior effect of nature based solutions in land management for enhancing ecosystem services
The Brazilian Atlantic Forest
Reconstructing Three Decades of Land Use and Land Cover Changes in Brazilian Biomes with Landsat Archive and Earth Engine
Global threats to human water security and river biodiversity
The Nature and Value of Ecosystem Services
Nature-based solutions for resilient landscapes and cities
Global Change and the Ecology of Cities
The effects of nutrient losses from agriculture on ground and surface water quality
Governance and water security
Water crisis in São Paulo evaluated under the disaster's point of view
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |