A decade of monitoring micropollutants in urban wet-weather flows: What did we learn?

Urban wet-weather discharges from combined sewer overflows (CSO) and stormwater outlets (SWO) are a potential pathway for micropollutants (trace contaminants) to surface waters, posing a threat to the environment and possible water reuse applications. Despite large efforts to monitor micropollutants in the last decade, the gained information is still limited and scattered. In a metastudy we performed a data-driven analysis of measurements collected at 77 sites (683 events, 297 detected micropollutants) over the last decade to investigate which micropollutants are most relevant in terms of 1) occurrence and 2) potential risk for the aquatic environment, 3) estimate the minimum number of data to be collected in monitoring studies to reliably obtain concentration estimates, and 4) provide recommendations for future monitoring campaigns. We highlight micropollutants to be prioritized due to their high occurrence and critical concentration levels compared to environmental quality standards. These top-listed micropollutants include contaminants from all chemical classes (pesticides, heavy metals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, personal care products, pharmaceuticals, and industrial and household chemicals). Analysis of over 30,000 event mean concentrations shows a large fraction of measurements (> 50%) were below the limit of quantification, stressing the need for reliable, standard monitoring procedures. High variability was observed among events and sites, with differences between micropollutant classes. The number of events required for a reliable estimate of site mean concentrations (error bandwidth of 1 around the "true" value) depends on the individual micropollutant. The median minimum number of events is 7 for CSO (2 to 31, 80%-interquantile) and 6 for SWO (1 to 25 events, 80%-interquantile). Our analysis indicates the minimum number of sites needed to assess global pollution levels and our data collection and analysis can be used to estimate the required number of sites for an urban catchment. Our data-driven analysis demonstrates how future wet-weather monitoring programs will be more effective if the consequences of high variability inherent in urban wet-weather discharges are considered.

Sustainable urban drainage systems in established city developments: Modelling the potential for CSO reduction and river impact mitigation.

Sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS) can significantly reduce runoff from urban areas. However, their potential to mitigate acute river impacts of combined sewer overflows (CSO) is largely unknown. To close this gap, a novel coupled model approach was deployed that simulates the effect of realistic SUDS strategies, developed for an established city quarter, on acute oxygen depressions in the receiving river. Results show that for an average rainfall year the SUDS strategies reduce total runoff by 28%-39% and peak runoff by 31%-48%. Resulting relative reduction in total CSO volume ranges from 45%-58%, exceeding annual runoff reduction from SUDS by a factor of 1.5. Negative impacts in the form of fish-critical dissolved oxygen (DO) conditions in the receiving river (<2 mg DO L-1) can be completely prevented with the SUDS strategies for an average rainfall year. The realistic SUDS strategies were compared with a simpler simulation approach which consists in globally downscaling runoff from all impervious areas. It indicates that such a simple approach does not completely account for the positive effect of SUDS, underestimating CSO volumes for specific rain events by up to 13%. Accordingly, global downscaling is only recommended for preliminary planning purposes.

Impacts of combined sewer overflows on a large urban river - Understanding the effect of different management strategies.

To support decision makers in planning effective combined sewer overflow (CSO) management strategies an integrated modelling and impact assessment approach has been developed and applied for a large urban area in Berlin, Germany. It consists of an urban drainage model, a river water quality model and a tool for the quantification of adverse dissolved oxygen (DO) conditions in the river, one of the main stressors for urban lowland rivers. The coupled model was calibrated successfully with average Nash-Sutcliffe-efficiencies for DO in the river of 0.61 and 0.70 for two validation years. Moreover, the whole range of observed DO concentrations after CSO down to 0 mg L-1 is simulated by the model. A local sensitivity analysis revealed that in the absence of CSO dissolved oxygen principally depends on phytoplankton dynamics. Regarding CSO impacts, it was shown that 97% of the observed DO deficit can be explained by the three processes (i) mixing of river water with CSO spill water poor in DO, (ii) reduced phytoplankton activity due to CSO-induced turbidity and (iii) degradation of organic matter by heterotrophic bacteria. As expected, process (iii) turned out to be the most important one. However depending on the time lag after CSO the other processes can become dominant. Given the different involved processes, we found that different mitigation schemes tested in a scenario analysis can reduce the occurrence of critical DO deficits in the river by 30-70%. Overall, the study demonstrates that integrated sewer-river-models can be set up to represent CSO impacts under complex urban conditions. However, a significant effort in monitoring and modelling is a requisite for achieving reliable results.

Hypolimnetic oxygen depletion in eutrophic lakes.

The oxygen-consuming processes in the hypolimnia of freshwater lakes leading to deep-water anoxia are still not well understood, thereby constraining suitable management concepts. This study presents data obtained from 11 eutrophic lakes and suggests a model describing the consumption of dissolved oxygen (O(2)) in the hypolimnia of eutrophic lakes as a result of only two fundamental processes: O(2) is consumed (i) by settled organic material at the sediment surface and (ii) by reduced substances diffusing from the sediment. Apart from a lake's productivity, its benthic O(2) consumption depends on the O(2) concentration in the water overlying the sediment and the molecular O(2) diffusion to the sediment. On the basis of observational evidence of long-term monitoring data from 11 eutrophic lakes, we found that the areal hypolimnetic mineralization rate ranging from 0.47 to 1.31 g of O(2) m(-2) d(-1) (average 0.90 ± 0.30) is a function of (i) a benthic flux of reduced substances (0.37 ± 0.12 g of O(2) m(-2) d(-1)) and (ii) an O(2) consumption which linearly increases with the mean hypolimnion thickness (z(H)) up to ~25 m. This model has important implications for predicting and interpreting the response of lakes and reservoirs to restoration measures.

Contribution of combined sewer overflows to trace contaminant loads in urban streams.

The present study examines the contribution of combined sewer overflows (CSO) to loads and concentrations of trace contaminants in receiving surface water. A simple method to assess the ratio of CSO to wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) effluents was applied to the urban River Spree in Berlin, Germany. The assessment indicated that annual loads are dominated by CSO for substances with removal in WWTP above approximately 95%. Moreover, it showed that substances with high removal in WWTP can lead to concentration peaks in the river during CSO events. The calculated results could be verified based on eight years of monitoring data from the River Spree, collected between 2000 and 2007. Substances that are well removed in WWTP such as NTA (nitrilotriacetic acid) were found to occur in significantly increased concentration during CSO, while the concentration of substances that are poorly removable in WWTP such as EDTA (ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid) decreased in CSO-influenced samples due to dilution effects. The overall results indicate the potential importance of the CSO pathway of well-removable sewage-based trace contaminants to rivers. In particular, high concentrations during CSO events may be relevant for aquatic organisms. Given the results, it is suggested to include well-removable, sewage-based trace contaminants, a substance group often neglected in the past, in future studies on urban rivers in case of combined sewer systems. The presented methodology is suggested for a first assessment, since it is based solely on urban drainage data, which is available in most cities.