scholarly journals HYDROLOGIC AND WATER-QUALITY RESPONSE OF FORESTED AND AGRICULTURAL LANDS DURING THE 1999 EXTREME WEATHER CONDITIONS IN EASTERN NORTH CAROLINA

2005 ◽  
Vol 48 (6) ◽  
pp. 2179-2188 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. D. Shelby ◽  
G. M. Chescheir ◽  
R. W. Skaggs ◽  
D. M. Amatya
2008 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 473-482 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela D. Coulliette ◽  
Rachel T. Noble

The Newport River Estuary (NPRE), an important North Carolina (NC) shellfish harvesting area, has been experiencing alterations to the land-water interface due to increasing population and coastal development. Water quality degradation in the estuary over the last decade has led to an increase of shellfish harvesting area closures, and has been postulated to be due to non-point source contamination in the form of stormwater. Water samples were taken in the NPRE (n=179) over a range of weather conditions and all seasons from August 2004 to September 2006. Fecal coliform (FC), as estimated by E. coli (EC), and Enterococcus (ENT) concentrations (MPN per 100 ml) were examined in relation to rainfall levels and distance from land. The relationships among the fecal indicator bacteria (FIB) and environmental parameters were also examined. The data revealed a significant increase in FC concentrations after measured rainfall amounts of 2.54 cm (general threshold) and 3.81 cm (management action threshold). However, higher than expected FIB concentrations existed during conditions of negligible rainfall (<0.25 cm), indicating a possible reservoir population in the sediment. Overall, stormwater runoff appears to be adversely impacting water quality in the NPRE.


2012 ◽  
Vol 128 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 59-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael A. O'Driscoll

Abstract Over the last two centuries, agricultural drainage in eastern North Carolina has transformed extensive wetlands to productive croplands. At the start of the drainage movement in the early 1900s, approximately 200,000 hectares (one half million acres) of drained agricultural lands existed in North Carolina. The 1909 North Carolina Drainage Act allowed for more extensive drainage projects. Drainage districts provided effective drainage outlets for farms and reduced flooding for the district. The districts dramatically increased the extent of drained lands during the 20th century. Currently, it is estimated that over 2 million hectares (five million acres) of drained agricultural lands exist in North Carolina, with the majority in the Coastal Plain. Agricultural drainage has contributed to huge gains in agricultural productivity in the region. However, this drainage has contributed to regional stream water quality impairment, altered stream hydrology, and wetland conversion. Over the last three decades, much work has been focused on reducing watershed nutrient exports in eastern North Carolina. Several major strategies have been used to decrease the environmental impacts of agricultural drainage, including: agronomic management practices; controlled drainage; riparian and wetland buffers; and channel alterations. Management of agricultural drainage during the 21st century will play a crucial role in regional stream, wetland, and coastal ecosystem health.


2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. M. Chescheir ◽  
M. E. Lebo ◽  
D. M. Amatya ◽  
J. Hughes ◽  
J. W. Gilliam ◽  
...  

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Wachholz ◽  
Seifeddine Jomaa ◽  
Olaf Büttner ◽  
Robert Reinecke ◽  
Michael Rode ◽  
...  

<p>Due to global climate change, the past decade has been the warmest for Germany since the beginning of climate records. Not only air temperature but also precipitation patterns are changing and therefore influencing the hydrologic cycle. This will certainly influence the chemical status of ground- and surface water bodies as mobilization, dilution and chemical reactions of contaminants are altered. However, it is uncertain if those alterations will impact water quality for better or worse and how they occur spatially. Since water management in Europe is handled at the regional scale, we suggest that an investigation is needed at the same scale to capture and quantify the different responses of the chemical status of water bodies to climate change and extreme weather conditions. In this study, we use open-access data to (1) quantify changes in temperature, precipitation, streamflow and groundwater levels for the past 40 - 60 years and (2) assess their impacts on nutrient concentrations in surface- and groundwater bodies. To disentangle management from climate effects we pay special attention to extreme weather conditions in the past decade. Referring to the Water Framework Directive, we chose the river basin district Elbe as our area of interest. Preliminary results indicate that especially the nitrate concentrations in surface water bodies of the Elbe catchment were positively affected in the last two years, while no significant impact on nitrate levels in shallow groundwater bodies was witnessed. However, many wells showed the first significant increase in water table depth in both years since 1985, raising the question of how fast groundwater-surface water interactions will change in the next years.</p>


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon Gullett ◽  
◽  
Alex K. Manda ◽  
Alex K. Manda ◽  
Carl Crozier ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
pp. 0
Author(s):  
Amy Henderson ◽  
Emek Kose ◽  
Allison Lewis ◽  
Ellen R. Swanson

<p style='text-indent:20px;'>Dramatic strides have been made in treating human waste to remove pathogens and excess nutrients before discharge into the environment, to the benefit of ground and surface water quality. Yet these advances have been undermined by the dramatic growth of Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) which produce voluminous quantities of untreated waste. Industrial swine routinely produce waste streams similar to that of a municipality, yet these wastes are held in open-pit "lagoons" which are at risk of rupture or overflow. Eastern North Carolina is a coastal plain with productive estuaries which are imperiled by more than 2000 permitted swine facilities housing over 9 million hogs; the associated 3,500 permitted manure lagoons pose a risk to sensitive estuarine ecosystems, as breaches or overflows send large plumes of nutrient and pathogen-rich waste into surface waters. Understanding the relationship between nutrient pulses and surface water quality in coastal environments is essential to effective CAFO policy formation. In this work, we develop a system of ODEs to model algae growth in a coastal estuary due to a manure lagoon breach and investigate nutrient thresholds above which algal blooms are unresolvable.</p>


Atmosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 561
Author(s):  
Adrienn Varga-Balogh ◽  
Ádám Leelőssy ◽  
Róbert Mészáros

Similarly to other countries, the first wave of the COVID pandemic induced a collapse of mobility in Hungary during the spring of 2020. From the environmental perspective, the obtained road traffic reduction of 20–50% could be regarded as an undesired traffic regulation experiment. Air quality impacts within Hungary were evaluated based on data from 52 monitoring sites measuring concentrations of pollutants NOx, O3, and PM10. Air pollution during the lockdown was compared to the same period (February–June) in the reference years 2014–2019. The large spatial heterogeneity of the air quality response was explored. The emission reduction coincided with the extreme weather of 2020, characterized by unusually warm pre-lockdown February and spring drought. The anomalously low pre-lockdown air pollution was further reduced (NOx) or increased (PM10) during the restrictions. Compared to the previous years, NOx concentrations during the curfew were found to differ between −4.1 and +0.2 standard deviations (median −1.55 SD), or −45% and +3% (median −18%) among different monitoring locations. Ozone concentrations were unusually high due to both weather and chemical reasons (median +11% or +0.8 SD), while the PM10 response was modest and largely weather-driven (median +7% or +0.4 SD).


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