Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag)
L o a d i n g
The Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology is a Swiss water research institute and an internationally networked institution.
Available DatasetsShowing 128 of 128 results
- This package contains data for the paper "Does (dis-)agreement reflect beliefs? An analysis of advocacy coalitions in Swiss pesticide policy". Paper abstract: Agricultural pesticide use is a wicked sustainability challenge: Trade-offs exist between health, environmental, agro-economic, and socio-political objectives. Various actors involved have diverse beliefs regarding these trade-offs and policies to address the challenge. But to what extent does the agreement or disagreement between actors reflect belief similarities or differences, and thus, the formation of advocacy coalitions? To answer this question, the study draws on the Advocacy Coalition Framework and investigates data from 54 key actors in the case of Swiss pesticide policy. The study explores the relationship between the actors’ (dis)agreement relations and their beliefs using Random Forests. Coalitions are identified through block modeling and beliefs based on Multi-Attribute Value Theory. The study shows that the two relations are a good proxy for identifying coalitions with conflict lines concerning beliefs and presents an approach to exploring ideological reasons behind (dis)agreement relations that supports identifying conflicting beliefs relevant to future policy solutions.1Licence not specified12 months ago
- In the framework of Ch2018, climate simulations were done in twenty-nine Swiss lakes, with three climate scenarios, and seventeen climate models from the start of 1981 to end of 2099. Lake variables in this dataset (temperature, stratification, ice cover) was obtain with the physical deterministic lake model Simstrat (v. 2.1.2).1Licence not specified12 months ago
- **There is [an older version](https://doi.org/10.25678/000044) of this dataset.** The dataset contains concentrations profiles of 213 agricultural pesticides in surface water samples. Half-day composite samples were taken from five small streams in Switzerland from the beginning of March to the end of August 2015. Half-day samples from discharge events were measured individually, whereas half-day samples taken during dry weather periods between discharge events were pooled to samples of variable lengths (five days on average) and then measured resulting in 34 to 60 measured samples per site.1Licence not specified12 months ago
- Data that is plotted in Ziemba, C., Sharma, P., Ahrens, T., Reynaert, E. and Morgenroth, E. (2021) Disruptions in loading and aeration impact effluent chlorine demand during biological greywater recycling. Water Research X, 1000871Licence not specified12 months ago
- **There is [an older version](https://doi.org/10.25678/0000AA) of this dataset.** This package contains a summary of data from published literature used as prior knowledge, fittings of the best three models per chemical as well as all matlab model files and an extensive result summary1Licence not specified12 months ago
- Ozone, electrolysis and granular activated carbon (GAC) were examined as potential post-treatments to follow a household-scale biologically activated membrane bioreactor (BAMBi), treating a wash water containing trace urine and feces contamination. Each post-treatment was evaluated for abilities and reaction preferences to remove or transform dissolved organic carbon (DOC), chemical structures that contribute color, and assimilable organic carbon (AOC), which can support bacterial regrowth. Batch treatment with each technology demonstrated an ability to remove ≥95% DOC. Ozone demonstrated a reaction selectivity through increased reaction rates with larger compounds and color-contributing compounds. Electrolysis and GAC demonstrated generally less-selective reactivity. Adding post-treatments to full-scale systems reduced DOC (55-91%), AOC (34-62%), and color (75-98%), without significant reaction selectivity. These reductions in DOC and AOC were not linked to reduction of bacterial concentrations in treated water. Reductions in bacterial concentrations were observed with ozone and electrolysis, but this is credited to oxidation chemicals produced in these systems and not the removal or transformations of organic materials.1Licence not specified12 months ago
- # Description Along river Glatt and river Chriesbach, spot samples were taken in an approximately weekly rhythm at five different stations from June 1972 to April 1977. In those samples physical, geochemical, anthropogenic parameters and heavy metals were measured. # Aim This project served as a pilot project for new extensive chemical examinations of flowing waters with regard to: - sample taking - sample preservation - chemical analysis - data preparation - data storage - data analysis - assessment of the water bodies Apart from this, strongly polluted water from river Glatt was analyzed. # Data Files - Glatt-Rheinsfelden - Glatt-Opfikon - Glatt-Niederglatt - Glatt-Glattfelden - Glatt-Faellanden - Glatt-Aubruecke_Hagenholz - Chriesbach-Duebendorf # Structure of the Data Files - measured data - loads - annual average of concentrations and loads - graphs of time series of concentrations and loads # Data source Chemical data are from Eawag and discharge data are from AWEL and FOEN # Publication List - Zobrist J. et al. (2011): 77 Jahre Untersuchungen an der Glatt. gwa 9, 315-327. This publication contains furthermore all important constructions works which have been accomplished at river Glatt. - Zobrist J. et al. (1976): Charakterisierung des chemischen Zustandes der Glatt. gwa 56, 97-114.1Licence not specifiedover 1 year ago
- # Description Spot samples were taken and analysed in a quarterly rhythm at eight different stations distributed all over Switzerland from 1965 to 1973. - Aare - Bern, Felsenau - Aare - Beznau - Broye - Payerne - Doubs - Ocourt - Inn - Martinsbruck - Rhein - Sankt Margarethen - Rhône - Aïre -Rhône - Porte du Scex # Monitoring Program In those samples, physical, geochemical and anthropogenic parameters were measured. # Origin of Data Data publication in the Hydrological Yearbook of Switzerland FOEN.1Licence not specifiedover 1 year ago
- # Description At the hydrological monitoring station Rhein - Schmitter aggregated samples were collected and analysed in an approximately weekly rhythm in 1972 and 1973. # Aim and Monitoring Program Based on the program of International Commission for the Protection of the Rhine (IKSR) to analyse the input of nutrients from tributary waters into lake Bodensee, the hydrological monitoring station Rhein - Schmitter was equipped for continious water sampling, measuring and data recording. The samples were taken in a weekly rhythm and analysed at EAWAG on components of nitrogen and phosphor proportional to the discharge. At high water discharge (Q > 330 m3/sec) samples were collected in a lower cadence into a separate collector (samples may therefore overlap in collection time). Averages of water temperature, pH or conductivity originate from the continuous recording. The data were published in the Hydrological Yearbook of Switzerland. # Origin of Data Data publication in the Hydrological Yearbook of Switzerland FOEN.1Licence not specifiedover 1 year ago
- The files contain the data and the R scripts needed to replicate the analysis of three case study urban water systems as described in: Manny, L. (2022) Socio-technical challenges towards data-driven and integrated urban water management: a socio-technical network approach. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2022.104360 Data-driven and integrated urban water management have been proposed to reduce surface water pollution in light of climate change and urbanization impacts. Besides technological innovation, data-driven and integrated management require information exchange among many actors, e.g., operators, engineers, or authorities. With the aim of achieving a more profound understanding of socio-technical infrastructures, such as urban water systems, I draw on the approach of socio-technical networks to study actors and infrastructure elements as well as multiple relations in-between. In this article, I investigate whether underlying socio-technical dependencies influence social interactions such as information exchange. More specifically related to data-driven and integrated management, I analyze potential challenges, such as organizational fragmentation, data access, and diverging perceptions. Based on empirical data from three case studies in Switzerland, I provide inferential results obtained from fitting exponential random graph models. Findings showed that actors’ relatedness to infrastructure elements affects their information exchange. Among the cases, the presence of the three challenges varied and is potentially contingent upon system size, organizational form, or progress in terms of data-driven and integrated management. Thus, incorporating a socio-technical perspective on social actors and infrastructure elements could help to improve policy design and implementation aiming to achieve more sustainable cities.1Licence not specifiedalmost 2 years ago
- Surface runoff represents a major pathway for pesticide transport from agricultural areas to surface waters. The influence of man-made structures (e.g. roads, hedges, ditches) on surface runoff connectivity has been shown in various studies. In Switzerland, so-called hydraulic shortcuts (e.g. inlets and maintenance manholes of road or field storm drainage systems) have been shown to influence surface runoff connectivity and related pesticide transport. Their occurrence, and their influence on surface runoff and pesticide connectivity have however not been studied systematically. To address that deficit, we randomly selected 20 study areas (average size = 3.5 km2) throughout the Swiss plateau, representing arable cropping systems. We assessed shortcut occurrence in these study areas using three mapping methods: field mapping, drainage plans, and high-resolution aerial images. Surface runoff connectivity in the study areas was analysed using a 2x2 m digital elevation model and a multiple-flow algorithm. Parameter uncertainty affecting this analysis was addressed by a Monte Carlo simulation. With our approach, agricultural areas were divided into areas that are either directly connected to surface waters, indirectly (i.e. via hydraulic shortcuts), or not connected at all. Finally, the results of this connectivity analysis were scaled up to the national level using a regression model based on topographic descriptors and were then compared to an existing national connectivity model. Inlets of the road storm drainage system were identified as the main shortcuts. On average, we found 0.84 inlets and a total of 2.0 manholes per hectare of agricultural land. In the study catchments between 43 and 74 % of the agricultural area is connected to surface waters via hydraulic shortcuts. On the national level, this fraction is similar and lies between 47 and 60 %. Considering our empirical observations led to shifts in estimated fractions of connected areas compared to the previous connectivity model. The differences were most pronounced in flat areas of river valleys. These numbers suggest that transport through hydraulic shortcuts is an important pesticide flow path in a landscape where many engineered structures exist to drain excess water from fields and roads. However, this transport process is currently not considered in Swiss pesticide legislation and authorisation. Therefore, current regulations may fall short to address the full extent of the pesticide problem. However, independent measurements of water flow and pesticide transport to quantify the contribution of shortcuts and validating the model results are lacking. Overall, the findings highlight the relevance of better understanding the connectivity between fields and receiving waters and the underlying factors and physical structures in the landscape.1Licence not specifiedalmost 2 years ago
- This dataset contains aerial images and digital surface models of 19 out of 20 hydrological subcatchments analysed in the project "Shortcut". The subcatchments mostly lie in rural areas of the Swiss midlands and the datasets were obtained by flights with an eBee drone (SenseFly) between October 2017 and August 2018. The resolutions of the aerial images and the digital surface models lie between 2cm/pixel and 5cm/pixel, depending on the catchment. The aerial images in this dataset were used for the publication "Hydraulic Shortcuts Increase the Connectivity of Arable Land Areas to Surface Waters" (Schönenberger, U. & Stamm C, 2021)". The publication, supporting information, datasets, and codes can be found on the Eawag Research Data Institutional Repository (DOI: 10.25678/0003J3).1Licence not specifiedalmost 2 years ago
- Two data sets collected in Hanoi, Vietnam and Kampala, Uganda on faecal sludge quantities and qualities1Licence not specifiedalmost 2 years ago
- Black soldier fly larvae (BSFL) treatment is an emerging technology for the valorisation of nutrients from biowaste. Selecting suitable substrates for BSFL treatment is a frequent challenge for researchers and practitioners. We conducted a systematic assessment of BSFL treatment substrates in Nairobi, Kenya to source more substrate for upscaling an existing BSFL treatment facility. The applied approach is universal and considers four criteria: 1) substrate availability and costs, 2) BSFL process performance, 3) product safety, and 4) waste recovery hierarchy. Data were collected from previous waste assessments or semi-structured key informant interviews and sight tours of waste producers. Waste nutritional composition and BSFL process performance metrics were summarised in the “BSFL Substrate Explorer”, an open-access web application that should facilitate the replication of such assessments. We show that most biowaste in Nairobi is currently not available for facility upscaling due to contamination with inorganics and a lack of affordable waste collection services. A mixture of human faeces, animal manure, fruit/vegetable waste, and food waste (with inorganics) should be pursued for upscaling. These wastes tend to have a lower treatment performance, but in contrast to cereal-based byproducts, food industry byproducts, and segregated food waste, there is no conflict with animal feed utilization. The traceability of substrates, source control, and post-harvest processing of larvae are required to ensure feed safety. The criteria presented here ensures the design of BSFL treatment facilities based on realistic performance estimates, the production of safe insect-based products, and environmental benefits of products compared to the status quo.1Licence not specifiedalmost 2 years ago
- This package includes the data and Python files for the publication "Non‐Gaussian parameter inference for hydrogeological models using Stein Variational Gradient Descent".1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are implicated as hotspots for the dissemination of antibacterial resistance into the environment. However, the in situ processes governing removal, persistence, and evolution of resistance genes during wastewater treatment remain poorly understood. Here, we used quantitative metagenomic and metatranscriptomic approaches to achieve a broad-spectrum view of the flow and expression of genes related to antibacterial resistance to over 20 classes of antibiotics, 65 biocides, and 22 metals. All compartments of 12 WWTPs share persistent resistance genes with detectable transcriptional activities that were comparatively higher in the secondary effluent, where mobility genes also show higher relative abundance and expression ratios. The richness and abundance of resistance genes vary greatly across metagenomes from different treatment compartments, and their relative and absolute abundances correlate with bacterial community composition and biomass concentration. No strong drivers of resistome composition could be identified among the chemical stressors analyzed, although the sub-inhibitory concentration (hundreds of ng/L) of macrolide antibiotics in wastewater correlates with macrolide and vancomycin resistance genes. Contig-based analysis shows considerable co-localization between resistance and mobility genes and implies a history of substantial horizontal resistance transfer involving human bacterial pathogens. Based on these findings, we propose future inclusion of mobility incidence (M%) and host pathogenicity of antibiotic resistance genes in their quantitative health risk ranking models with an ultimate goal to assess the biological significance of wastewater resistomes with regard to disease control in humans or domestic livestock.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- This package provides material related to the paper `B. Hadengue, A. Scheidegger, E. Morgenroth, T.A. Larsen, Modeling the Water-Energy Nexus in Households, Energy & Buildings (2020), doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2020.110262` Various scripts and code, as well as raw results, are included. ### Paper Abstract One third of the global carbon emissions are emitted by the building sector. Over the last decades, space heating loads have decreased in modern buildings, and domestic hot water (DHW) is now oftentimes the largest energy consumer in the household. We developed the WaterHub modeling framework to assess the potential of technologies or measures targeting DHW energy demand. The framework combines process-based technological models and stochastic water demand modeling in a modular way to allow for holistic simulations of complex DHW systems. In two rigorous tests of the modeling framework, we demonstrated the importance of water consumption dynamics in the modeling of DHW systems, showing that static modeling leads to underestimated heat losses and wrong energy consumption predictions. In an exemplary case study, we identified and quantified the synergistic interactions between water boiler temperatures and a drain water heat recovery device, demonstrating the strength of this methodology for optimizing strategies targeting DHW systems. With its modular structure, this open-source modeling framework can be extended to include any DHW-related technology, providing a useful common platform for collaboration between technology developers and water experts.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Interactive annotation tool that allows to perform labelling procedure of both time series and 2D data.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Sensor maintenance is time-consuming and is a bottleneck for monitoring on-site wastewater treatment systems. Hence, we compare maintained and unmaintained sensors to monitor the biological performance of a small-scale sequencing batch reactor (SBR). The sensor types are ion-selective pH, optical dissolved oxygen (DO), and oxidation-reduction potential (ORP) with platinum electrode. We created soft sensors using engineered features: ammonium valley for pH, oxidation ramp for DO, and nitrite ramp for the ORP. Four soft sensors based on unmaintained pH sensors correctly identified the completion of the ammonium oxidation (89 to 91 out of 107 cycles), about as many times as soft sensors based on a maintained pH sensor (91 out of 107 cycles). In contrast, the DO soft sensor using data from a maintained sensor showed slightly better (89 out of 96 cycles) detection performance than that using data from two unmaintained sensors (77, respectively 82 out of 96 correct). Furthermore, the DO soft sensor using maintained data is much less sensitive to the optimisation of cut-off frequency and slope tolerance than the soft sensor using unmaintained data. The nitrite ramp provided no useful information on the state of nitrite oxidation, so no comparison of maintained and unmaintained ORP sensors was possible in this case. We identified two hurdles when designing soft sensors for unmaintained sensors: i) Sensors’ type- and design-specific deterioration affects performance. ii) Feature engineering for soft sensors is sensor type specific, and the outcome is strongly influenced by operational parameters such as the aeration rate. In summary, the results with the provided soft sensors show that frequent sensor maintenance is not necessarily needed to monitor the performance of SBRs. Without sensor maintenance monitoring smalls-scale SBRs becomes practicable, which could improve the reliability of unstaffed on-site treatment systems substantially.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Mooring with temperature and pressure loggers on lake Sils to observe ice growing and inverse stratification1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- This repository contains the source code and output files for the corresponding publication. Unfortunately, the reproduction also requires a DeeSse license. The latter can be obtained free of charge for academic purposes on http://www.randlab.org/research/deesse/.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- The dataset contains concentrations profiles of 217 agricultural pesticides in surface water samples. Five small streams in Switzerland were sampled from the beginning of March to mid October 2017 using 3.5 day composite samples resulting in 61 to 66 measured samples per site and a total of 313 samples.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- ## There is a [newer version](https://doi.org/10.25678/00050C) of this dataset. **There is an [older version of this dataset](https://doi.org/10.25678/0001VP).** The “National Long-term Surveillance of Swiss Rivers” (NADUF) program was initiated in 1972 as a cooperative project between three institutes: + [Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN)](https://www.bafu.admin.ch/bafu/en/home.html) + [Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (EAWAG)](https://www.eawag.ch) + [Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL)](https://www.wsl.ch/en.html) (since 2003) The following institutes participated later: + [Amt für Umwelt und Energie des Kantons Basel-Stadt (AUE)](https://www.aue.bs.ch) + [Federal Institute of Metrology (METAS)](https://www.metas.ch/metas/en/home.html) With the NADUF program, the chemical-physical state of Swiss rivers as well as intermediate-term and long-term changes in concentration are observed. Furthermore, it provides data for scientific studies on biological, chemical and physical processes in river water. The NADUF network serves as a basic data and sampling facility to evaluate the effectiveness of water protection measures and for various scientific projects.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- This study presents a novel concept for estimating net ecosystem production (NEP), the export of organic carbon (OC) from the productive surface layer to the deep-water (hypolimnion) of eleven seasonally stratified lakes, varying in depth and trophic state. As oxygen remineralizes settling OC at a constant ratio, NEP is equivalent to the areal hypolimnetic mineralization rate (AHM) plus burial in the sediment (net sedimentation, NS). Two major interferences have to be considered, however. First, OC from terrestrial sources, not originating from primary production, consumes a fraction of oxidants. Second, sediment diagenetic processes of lakes in trophic transition (e.g. undergoing eutrophication or reoligotrophication) that are not in quasi-steady-state with actual fluxes of OC in the productive surface layer, bias the estimation of NEP. In these cases, we suggest subtracting the flux of reduced substances diffusing from the sediment. This results in some overestimation for lakes with high allochthonous loads, and slight underestimation in lakes that are not in quasi-steady-state, because the fraction of the actual sediment burial of autochthonous OC is small but not negligible. The presented approach requires data from routinely available chemical monitoring and thus can be applied to historic data. The seasonal time integration makes the estimation of NEP quite robust. Exemplary, NEP of Lake Geneva was estimated from the export of P and N from the productive zone during the summer season to the hypolimnion assembling seasonal budgets. Based on a historic data record of 47 years, NEP estimations from AHM rates agreed well with P and N budgets and helped to verify and constrain the uncertainty of the estimates.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- In freshwater lakes, large amounts of methane are formed in anoxic sediments. Methane-oxidizing bacteria effectively convert this potent greenhouse gas into biomass and carbon dioxide. These bacteria are present throughout the water column where methane concentrations can range from nanomolar to millimolar concentrations. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that methanotroph assemblages in a seasonally stratified lake exhibit contrasting methane oxidation kinetics in the methane-rich hypolimnion compared to the epilimnion with low methane concentrations. We further examined the change of methane oxidation kinetics during autumn overturn as more methane becomes available in the epilimnion. Together with the change of methane oxidation kinetics, we investigated changes in the transcription of genes encoding the methane monooxygenase (MMO), which is the enzyme responsible for the first step of methane oxidation. We show that the half-saturation constant (Km) obtained from laboratory experiments with the natural microbial community differed by two orders of magnitude between epi- and hypolimnion during stable stratification. During lake overturn, however, the kinetic constants at the lake surface and in the deep-water converged along with a change of the methanotroph assemblage. Conventional particulate MMO seemed responsible for the methane-oxidation under different methane concentrations. Our results suggest that changing methane availability creates niches for methanotroph assemblages with well-adapted methane-oxidation kinetics. This rapid selection and succession of adapted lacustrine methanotroph assemblages seem to support that the reported high removal efficiency of more than 90% is maintained even under rapidly changing conditions during lake overturn. Consequently, only a small fraction of methane stored in the anoxic hypolimnion is emitted to the atmosphere.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- This study assessed the acute and chronic risk of pesticides, singly and as mixtures, for fish using comprehensive chemical data of four monitoring studies conducted in small- and medium-sized streams of Switzerland between 2012 and 2018. Pesticides were ranked based on single substance risk quotients and relative contribution to mixture risk. Concentrations of the pyrethroid insecti-cides, λ-cyhalothrin, cypermethrin and deltamethrin, and the fungicides, carbendazim and fenpropimorph, posed acute or chronic single substance risks. Risk quotients of eighteen addi-tional pesticides were equal or greater than 0.1, and thirteen of those contributed ≥30% to mixture risk. Relatively few substances dominated the mixture risk in most water samples, with chronic and acute maximum cumulative ratios never exceeding 5 and 7, respectively. A literature review of toxicity data showed that concentrations of several pesticides detected in Swiss streams were sufficient to cause direct sublethal effects on fish in laboratory studies. Based on the results of our study, we conclude that pesticides detected in Swiss streams, especially pyrethroid insecticides, fungicides and pesticide mixtures, pose a risk to fish health and can cause direct sublethal effects at environmental concentrations. Sensitive life stages of species with highly specialized life histo-ry traits may be particularly vulnerable; however, the lack of toxicity data for non-model species currently prevents a conclusive assessment across species.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Autotrophic nitrogen removal by anaerobic ammonium oxidizing (anammox) bacteria is an energy-efficient nitrogen removal process in wastewater treatment. However, full-scale deployment under mainstream conditions remains challenging for practitioners due to the high stress susceptibility of anammox bacteria towards fluctuations in dissolved oxygen (DO) and temperature. Here, we investigated the response of microbial biofilms with verified anammox activity to DO shocks under 20 °C and 14 °C. While pulse disturbances of 0.3 mg L−1 DO prompted only moderate declines in the NH4+ removal rates, 1.0 mg L−1 DO led to complete but reversible inhibition of the NH4+ removal activity in all reactors. Genome-centric metagenomics and metatranscriptomics were used to investigate the stress response on various biological levels. We show that temperature regime and strength of DO perturbations induced divergent responses from the process level down to the transcriptional profile of individual taxa. Community-wide gene expression differed significantly depending on the temperature regime in all reactors, and we found a noticeable impact of DO disturbances on genes involved in transcription, translation, replication and posttranslational modification at 20 °C but not 14 °C. Genome-centric analysis revealed that different anammox species and other key biofilm taxa differed in their transcriptional responses to distinct temperature regimes and DO disturbances.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- A software code to retrieve the uncertainty from lineralized hard X-ray chemcial images. The code is written in R and uses a Markov Chain implemented through the package rjags.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Aquasim model for Biofilm Modelling chapter (Chapter 17 by Eberhard Morgenroth)1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Estimates of accumulated quantities and qualities (Q&Q) of faecal sludge are essential for developing city-wide management plans. However, standardized approaches are lacking, and examples in scientific literature make use of diverse methodologies and parameters, making their comparability and transferability difficult. This study field-tested an approach for estimating Q&Q in Sircilla, India, and compared three methods for measuring accumulated sludge: (1) faecal sludge accumulation rate from in situ measurement with a core sampler; (2) faecal sludge accumulation rate with volume emptied by desludging truck; and (3) sludge blanket accumulation rate with a core sampler. Measurements were taken at households and commercial establishments, samples were analysed for characteristics, and demographic, environmental, and technical data were collected with a questionnaire. The median TS, VS, and COD concentrations for all containments were 26.8, 17.8, and 32.0 g/L, respectively. The median faecal sludge accumulation rate estimated with the core sampler and truck were 53 and 96 L/cap·year, respectively. The median sludge blanket accumulation rate was 17 L/cap·year. Continued data collection in this fashion will lead to a better understanding of what is accumulating in onsite containments at regional levels.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Pesticides used in agriculture can end up in nearby streams and can have a negative impact on nontarget organisms such as aquatic invertebrates. During registration, bioaccumulation potential is often investigated using laboratory tests only. Recent studies showed that the magnitude of bioaccumulation in the field substantially differs from laboratory conditions. To investigate this discrepancy, we conducted a field bioaccumulation study in a stream known to receive pollutant loadings from agriculture. Our work incorporates measurements of stream pesticide concentrations at high temporal resolution (every 20 min), as well as sediment, leaves, and caged gammarid analyses (every 2-24 h) over several weeks. Of 49 investigated pesticides, 14 were detected in gammarids with highly variable concentrations of up to 140 ± 28 ng/gww. Toxicokinetic modeling using laboratory-derived uptake and depuration rate constants for azoxystrobin, cyprodinil, and fluopyram showed that despite the highly resolved water concentrations measured, the pesticide burden on gammarids remains underestimated by a factor of 1.9 ± 0.1 to 31 ± 3.0, with the highest underestimations occurring after rain events. Including dietary uptake from polluted detritus leaves and sediment in the model explained this underestimation only to a minor proportion. However, suspended solids analyzed during rain events had high pesticide concentrations, and uptake from them could partially explain the underestimation after rain events. Additional comparison between the measured and modeled data showed that the pesticide depuration in gammarids is slower in the field. This observation suggests that several unknown mechanisms may play a role, including lowered enzyme expression and mixture effects. Thus, it is important to conduct such retrospective risk assessments based on field investigations and adapt the registration accordingly.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- This package contains data to an article about denitrification in groundwater. The data included are: 1. continuously analyzed (noble) gases and excess air model results of three different piezometers over a six-month period; 2. hydraulic conductivity and microbial activity analyzed at the piezometers (and the stream); 3. key parameters associated with denitrification (nitrate, alkalinity, O2, DOC, sulfate); 4. precipitation data and water level data of the stream and two piezometers.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Data sets on the percentage of virus transferred between fingers and water or saliva. Transfer with saliva is for both wet hands (where the virus inoculum was not allowed to appreciably dry before transfer) and for dry hands (where the virus inoculum was allowed to dry before transfer).1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Chlorothalonil, a fungicide applied for decades worldwide, has recently been banned in the European Union (EU) and Switzerland due to its carcinogenicity and the presence of potentially toxic transformation products (TPs) in groundwater. The spread and concentration range of chlorothalonil TPs in different drinking water resources was examined (73 groundwater and four surface water samples mainly from Switzerland). The chlorothalonil sulfonic acid TPs (R471811, R419492, R417888) occurred more frequently and at higher concentrations (detected in 65-100% of the samples, ≤2200 ngL-1) than the phenolic TPs (SYN507900, SYN548580, R611968; detected in 10-30% of the samples, ≤130 ngL-1). The TP R471811 was found in all samples and even in 52% of the samples above 100 ngL-1, the drinking water standard in Switzerland and other European countries. Therefore, the abatement of chlorothalonil TPs was investigated in laboratory and pilot-scale experiments and along the treatment train of various water works, comprising aquifer recharge, UV disinfection, ozonation, advanced oxidation processes (AOPs), activated carbon treatment, and reverse osmosis. The phenolic TPs can be abated during ozonation (second order rate constant kO3 ∼10^4 M-1s-1) and by reaction with hydroxyl radicals (OH) in AOPs (kOH ∼10^9 M-1s-1). In contrast, the sulfonic acid TPs, which occurred in higher concentrations in drinking water resources, react only very slowly with ozone (kO3 <0.04 M-1s-1) and OH (kOH <5.0 × 10^7 M-1s-1) and therefore persist in ozonation and OH-based AOPs. Activated carbon retained the very polar TP R471811 only up to a specific throughput of 25 m3kg-1 (20% breakthrough), similarly to the X-ray contrast agent diatrizoic acid. Reverse osmosis was capable of removing all chlorothalonil TPs by ≥98%.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Individual-level variation arising from responses to environmental gradients influences population and community dynamics. How such responses empirically relate to the mechanisms that govern species coexistence is, however, poorly understood. Previous results from lake phytoplankton communities suggested that the evenness of organismal traits in multiple dimensions increases with resource limitation, possibly due to resource partitioning at the individual level. Here we experimentally tested the emergence of this pattern by growing two phytoplankton species (Pseudokirchneriella subcapitata and Microcystis aeruginosa) under a gradient of light intensity, in monoculture and jointly. Under low light (resource) conditions, the populations diversified into a wide range of phenotypes, which were evenly distributed in multidimensional trait space (defined by four pigment-related trait dimensions), consistent with the observed field pattern. Our interpretation is that under conditions of light limitation, individual phytoplankton cells alter photosynthetic traits to reduce overlap in light acquisition, acquiring unexploited resources and thereby likely maximising individual success. Our results provide prime experimental evidence that resource limitation increases the evenness of conspecific and heterospecific microbial phenotypes along trait axes, advancing our understanding of trait-based coexistence.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Data for: Thermodynamic Controls on Rates of Iron Oxide Reduction by Extracellular Electron ShuttlesAnaerobic microbial respiration in sub- and anoxic environments often involves particulate ferric iron (oxyhydr-)oxides as terminal electron acceptors. To ensure efficient respiration, a widespread strategy among iron-reducing microorganisms is the use of extracellular electron shuttles (EES) that transfer two electrons from the microbial cell to the iron oxide surface. Yet, a fundamental understanding of how EES-oxide redox thermodynamics affect rates of iron oxide reduction remains elusive. Attempts to rationalize rates of iron oxide reduction for different EES, solution pH, and iron oxides on the basis of the underlying reaction free energy of the two-electron transfer were unsuccessful. Here, we demonstrate that reduction rates determined in this work for different iron oxides and EES under varying solution chemistry can be reconciled with existing rate data when instead related to the free energy of the less exergonic (or even endergonic) first of the two electron transfers from the fully, two electron-reduced EES to oxide ferric iron. We show how free energy relationships aid in identifying controls on microbial iron oxide reduction by EES and, thereby, advance a more fundamental understanding of anaerobic respiration using iron oxides.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- This package contains the data and code necessary to run the experiments for our paper "The Value of Human Data Annotation for Machine Learning1based Anomaly Detection in Environmental Systems".1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Groundwater is a major drinking water resource but its quality with regard to organic micropollutants (MPs) is insufficiently assessed. Therefore, we aimed to investigate Swiss groundwater more comprehensively using liquid chromatography high-resolution tandem mass spectrometry (LC-HRMS/MS). First, samples from 60 sites were classified as having high or low urban or agricultural influence based on 498 target compounds associated with either urban or agricultural sources. Second, all LC-HRMS signals were related to their potential origin (urban, urban and agricultural, agricultural, or not classifiable) based on their occurrence and intensity in the classified samples. A considerable fraction of estimated concentrations associated with urban and/or agricultural sources could not be explained by the 139 detected targets. The most intense nontarget signals were automatically annotated with structure proposals using MetFrag and SIRIUS4/CSI:FingerID with a list of >988,000 compounds. Additionally, suspect screening was performed for 1162 compounds with predicted high groundwater mobility from primarily urban sources. Finally, 12 nontargets and 11 suspects were identified unequivocally (Level 1), while 17 further compounds were tentatively identified (Level 2a/3). amongst these were 13 pollutants thus far not reported in groundwater, such as: the industrial chemicals 2,5-dichlorobenzenesulfonic acid (19 detections, up to 100 ng L-1), phenylphosponic acid (10 detections, up to 50 ng L-1), triisopropanolamine borate (2 detections, up to 40 ng L-1), O-des[2-aminoethyl]-O-carboxymethyl dehydroamlodipine, a transformation product (TP) of the blood pressure regulator amlodipine (17 detections), and the TP SYN542490 of the herbicide metolachlor (Level 3, 33 detections, estimated concentrations up to 100–500 ng L-1). One monitoring site was far more contaminated than other sites based on estimated total concentrations of potential MPs, which was supported by the elucidation of site-specific nontarget signals such as the carcinogen chlorendic acid, and various naphthalenedisulfonic acids. Many compounds remained unknown, but overall, source related prioritisation proved an effective approach to support identification of compounds in groundwater.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- This data is generic and can be used to identify locally appropriate sanitation system options and quantify corresponding resource recovery and loss potentials in any case. It has previously been used to generate sanitation system options and to quantify phosphorus, nitrogen, total solids, and water flows in 101'548 sanitation systems generated from 41 potential technologies appropriate for a small town (Katarnyia) in Nepal. Please contact us for any newer version of the dataset. The data contains a user instructions for the associated models and a catalogue of 41 technologies summarising appropriateness profiles and raw data on transfer coefficients. A csv file with a compilation of all data is made available for more convenient reuse.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- The Dual Scripps Plankton Camera (DSPC) is a new approach for automated in-situ monitoring of phyto- and zooplankton communities based on a dual magnification dark-field imaging microscope. Here, we present the DSPC and its associated image processing while evaluating its capabilities in i) detecting and characterizing plankton species of different size and taxonomic categories and ii) measuring their abundance in both laboratory and field applications. In the laboratory, body size and abundance estimates by the DSPC significantly and robustly scaled with measurements derived by microscopy. In the field, a DSPC installed permanently at 3 m depth in Lake Greifensee (Switzerland) delivered images of plankton individuals, colonies, and heterospecific aggregates at hourly timescales without disrupting natural arrangements of interacting organisms, their microenvironment or their behavior. The DSPC was able to track the dynamics of taxa, mostly at the genus level, in the size range between ∼10 μm to ∼ 1 cm, covering many components of the planktonic food web (including parasites and potentially toxic cyanobacteria). Comparing data from the field-deployed DSPC to traditional sampling and microscopy revealed a general overall agreement in estimates of plankton diversity and abundances. The most significant disagreements between traditional methods and the DSPC resided in the measurements of zooplankton community properties. Our data suggest that the DSPC is better equipped to study the dynamics and demography of heterogeneously distributed organisms such as zooplankton, because high temporal resolution and continuous sampling offer more information and less variability in taxa detection and quantification than traditional sampling. Time series collected by the DSPC depicted ecological succession patterns, algal bloom dynamics and diel fluctuations with a temporal frequency and morphological resolution that was never observed by traditional methods. Access to high frequency, reproducible and real-time data of a large spectrum of the planktonic ecosystem can expand our understanding of both applied and fundamental plankton ecology. Our work leads us to conclude that the utilization of the DSPC is robust for both research and water quality monitoring and suitable for stable long-term deployments.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Anonymized data and R code needed to replicate the analysis presented in the study "Networks of Swiss water governance issues. Studying fit between media attention and organizational activity" to be published in Society & Natural Resources. The study looks at how relations between Swiss water governance issues are portrayed in the media as compared to the way organizations involved in water governance reflect these relations in their activity. This is a paper output of the SNF funded project "Overlapping subsystems". Access to the complete, non-anonymized dataset is restricted.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Since the output files for this publication were in excess of 300GB, this repository contains the python scripts required to re-create the output files for the corresponding publication. If you only need the output files directly, the first author can send you a hard drive with the raw output upon request.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Species interactions and coevolution are integral to ecological communities, but we lack empirical information on when and how these interactions generate and purge genetic diversity. Using genomic time series data from host-virus experiments, we found that coevolution occurs through consecutive selective sweeps in both species, with temporal consistency across replicates. Sweeps were accompanied by phenotypic change (resistance or infectivity increases) and expansions in population size. In the host, population expansion enabled rapid generation of genetic diversity in accordance with neutral processes. Viral molecular evolution was, in contrast, confined to few genes, all putative targets of selection. This study demonstrates that molecular evolution during species interactions is shaped by both eco-evolutionary feedback dynamics and interspecific differences in how genetic diversity is generated and maintained.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Public infrastructure decisions affect many stakeholders with various benefits and costs. For public decisions, it is crucial that decision-making processes and outcomes are fair. Fairness concepts have rarely been explored in public infrastructure planning. We close this gap for a global issue of growing importance: replacing sewer-based, centralized by decentralized wastewater systems. We empirically study fairness principles in this policy-relevant context, and identify possible influencing factors in a representative online survey of 472 Swiss German residents. In a transition phase, innovative, decentralized pilot wastewater systems are installed in households. We designed two vignettes for this context to test the adhesion to principles of distributive justice—equality, equity, and need—at individual and community level. A third vignette tests procedural justice with increasing fulfilment of fair process criteria. The results confirm our hypotheses: equity is perceived as fairer than equality at individual and collective levels. Contrary to expectations and literature, need is perceived as even fairer than equity. Procedural justice results confirm literature, e.g., the majority (92%) of respondents deems a policy fair that includes them in decision-making. Only few demographic and explanatory factors are significantly correlated with respondents’ fairness perceptions. Although unexpected, this is positive, implying that introducing decentralized wastewater technology can be designed for the entire population independent of characteristics of individuals. Generally, our results confirm literature: fairness perceptions depend on the circumstances. Hence, they should be elicited in the exact application context to be able to enter negotiation processes and provide concrete advice to decision-makers.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Mooring with temperature and pressure loggers on lake Greifen to observe ice growing and inverse stratification1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Biofilms serve essential ecosystem functions and are used in different technical applications. Studies from stream ecology and waste water treatment have shown that biofilm functionality depends to a great extent on community structure. Here we present a fast and easy-to-use method for individual cell-based analysis of stream biofilms, based on stain-free flow cytometry and visualization of the high-dimensional data by viSNE. The method allows the combined assessment of community structure, decay of phototrophic organisms and presence of abiotic particles. In laboratory experiments, it allows quantification of cellular decay and detection of survival of larger cells after temperature stress, while in the field it enables detection of community structure changes that correlate with known environmental drivers (flow conditions, dissolved organic carbonDOC, calcium) and detection of microplastic contamination. The method can potentially be applied to other biofilm types, e.g. for inferring community structure for environmental and industrial research and monitoring.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- We summarize the concept for ex-ante cost estimations for sanitation systems based on mass flows as developed within a Master thesis by Verena Germann in the framework of the GRASP project ([Generation and Assessment of Sanitation Systems for Strategic Planning](https://www.eawag.ch/en/department/sww/projects/grasp-generation-assessment-of-sanitation-systems-for-strategic-planning/)) by Dorothee Spuhler . The supporting information contains some illustrative examples for cost calculations for a set of sanitation systems for different areas in Arba Minch, a small town in Ethiopia.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Das Package beschreibt das Abluftmesssystem Notos zur Messung gasförmiger Emissionen aus Abwasserreinigungsanlagen in zeitlich und räumlich hoher Auflösung . Für die Fassung der Emissionen werden schwimmende Ablufthauben eingesetzt. Das System wurde an der Eawag und der ETH Zürich entwickelt.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- This package contains the software code for online weight elicitation (Version : 0.9.4) and its admin interface (version 1.0.1). In Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis, weights are scaling constants representing the relative importance of the criteria. In this version, weight elicitation can be done with the swing method only, or with the swing method followed by the trade-off method and consistency check (with "learning loop"). The software can be used to send an online survey to many remote participants, or as an interactive tool during a facilitated workshop.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- New technologies and processes, such as mainstream anammox, aim to reduce energy requirements of wastewater treatment and improve effluent quality. However, in municipal wastewater (MWW) anammox system are often unstable due to process control disturbance, influent variability, or unwanted nitrite oxidizing bacteria (NOB). This study examines the anammox system by focusing on anammox activity and its robustness in a mainstream environment. An 8 m3 pilot-scale sequencing batch reactor (SBR) receiving pretreated MWW (with external nitrite addition) was seeded with pre-colonized carriers. Within six months at 12–20 °C an anammox activity of 200 gN∙m-3∙d-1 was achieved. After the startup an anammox activity of 260 ± 83 gN∙m-3∙d-1 was maintained over 450 days. The robustness of the anammox activity was analyzed through three disturbance experiments. Anammox biofilm on carriers were exposed to dissolved oxygen (DO = 1.6 mg∙L-1, intermittent aeration), organic loading rate (OLR, C/N increased from 2:1 to 5:1) and temperature disturbances (20 °C to 12 °C) in triplicate 12 L bench scale reactors. The anammox activity and microbial community was monitored during these disturbances. The DO and OLR disturbance experiments were replicated at pilot scale to investigate upscaling effects. Bench and pilot scale anammox activity were unaffected by the DO disturbance. Similarly, an increase in OLR did not deteriorate the bench and pilot scale anammox activity, if nitrate was available. When, at bench scale, the reactor temperature was reduced from 20 °C to 12 °C overnight, anammox activity decreased significantly, this was not the case for the slow seasonal temperature changes (12–25 °C) at pilot scale where no strong temperature dependency was detected in winter. Metagenomic analysis revealed a broad range of Brocadiaceae species with no single dominant anammox species. Anammox thrive under mainstream conditions and can withstand typical process disruptions.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Code, data and maps associated with the article Podgorski, J., and M. Berg (2020), Global threat of arsenic in groundwater, Science, 368(6493), 845–850, doi:10.1126/science.aba1510.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Data and R scripts needed to replicate the analysis of law-driven versus actor-driven integration of issues in Swiss flood risk management, described in the study "Policy integration: Do laws or actors integrate issues in Swiss flood risk management?". Existing research emphasizes interdependencies between social and ecological systems in climate change adaptation. Ecological systems are often complex and span several policy issues that are not integrated in the social system. In order to increase the fit between social and ecological systems, understanding factors that promote the integration of interdependent issues is crucial. We analyze two bases for issue integration: a) political actors connecting issues and, b) the legal framework cross-referencing issues. We propose a network method for systematic comparisons of issue integration based on actors or laws. For the case of Swiss flood risk management, we find that actor- and law-based issue integration co-vary and might be self-reinforcing. We further find that issue integration mostly rests on laws, although cases exist where actors are the main basis of integration. Results promote our understanding of potential bases for the integration of policy issues, thereby contributing knowledge about adaptive governance capacities in social-ecological systems that buffer the effects of climate change.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Mooring with temperature and pressure loggers on lake Sihl to observe ice growing and inverse stratification1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- We propose to predict histograms of object sizes in crowded scenes directly without any explicit object instance segmentation. What makes this task challenging is the high density of objects (of the same category), which makes instance identification hard. Instead of explicitly segmenting object instances, we show that directly learning histograms of object sizes improves accuracy while using drastically less parameters. This is very useful for application scenarios where explicit, pixel-accurate instance segmentation is not needed, but there lies interest in the overall distribution of instance sizes. Our core applications are in biology, where we estimate the size distribution of soldier fly larvae, and medicine, where we estimate the size distribution of cancer cells as an intermediate step to calculate the tumor cellularity score. Given an image with hundreds of small object instances, we output the total count and the size histogram. We also provide a new data set for this task, the FlyLarvae data set, which consists of 11, 000 larvae instances labeled pixel-wise. Our method results in an overall improvement in the count and size distribution prediction as compared to state-of-the-art instance segmentation method Mask R-CNN [11].1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- As the demand for hydroelectricity progresses worldwide, small hydropower operators are increasingly examining the feasibility of using existing infrastructure (e.g. desander) in run-of-the-river schemes for intermittent power production. Such flexible production causes short-term discharge fluctuations (hydropeaking) in downstream reaches with potential adverse effects for the sensitive fauna and flora in alpine streams. In a field experiment on a previously unregulated section of the upper Rhone River (Switzerland), we measured density and composition of macroinvertebrate drift in two habitats (riffle, pool) following a 15-minute hydropeaking wave. The experimental hydropeaking was replicated five times over 14 days with decreasing recovery times between peaks (8 days, 3 days, 2 days, and 24 hours) and drift measurements were compared with kick samples for the benthic community. Results from the kick sampling showed that benthic macroinvertebrate abundance and composition did not significantly change between the experimental peaks. There were habitat specific reactions in macroinvertebrate drift to hydropeaking, with the pool experiencing more pronounced drift abundances than the riffle. We observed that drift abundance was not significantly correlated with recovery time but results indicate a reaction of some taxa to decreasing recovery times. This research may support water policy decision-makers to better understand the ecological impact of flexible power production in small hydropower plants, and advocates for the importance of completing more in-situ field experiments.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- A package describing a off-gas monitoring system for wastewater treatment plants. The system uses floating flux chambers for a spatially highly resolved monitoring of compounds in wastewater reactor systems.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Members and partners of the Sewage analyses CORe group Europe - (SCORE) measured five illicit drug residues in wastewater 2011-2017 (every year one week). The data set covers in total 143 wastewater treatment plants in 120 cities from 37 countries, which were monitored at least once.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Mooring with temperature and pressure loggers on lake St.Moritz to observe ice growing and inverse stratification1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- **Dataset for MYSKAPADU:** Mystery Shopping, and Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Pesticides among Agro-Input Dealers in Uganda Including study tools to collect data, raw data, analysis scripts, analyzed outcomes and final data **Publication Title:** What agro-input dealers know, sell and say to smallholder farmers about pesticides: A mystery shopping and KAP analysis in Uganda. **Publication abstract:** **Background:** Pesticides can have negative effects on human and environmental health, especially when not handled as intended. In many countries, agro-input dealers sell pesticides to smallholder farmers and are supposed to provide recommendations on application and handling. This study investigates the role of agro-input dealers in transmitting safety information from chemical manufacturers to smallholder farmers, assesses the safety of their shops, what products they sell, and how agro-input dealers abide by laws and recommendations on best practices for preventing pesticide risk situations. **Methods:** Applying a mixed-methods approach, we studied agro-input dealers in Central and Western Uganda. Structured questionnaires were applied to understand agro-input dealers’ knowledge, attitude and practices on pesticides (n = 402). Shop layout (n = 392) and sales interaction (n = 236) were assessed through observations. Actual behavior of agro-input dealers when selling pesticides was revealed through mystery shopping with local farmers buying pesticides (n = 94). **Results:** While 97.0% of agro-input dealers considered advising customers their responsibility, only 26.6% of mystery shoppers received any advice from agro-input dealers when buying pesticides. 53.2% of products purchased were officially recommended. Sales interactions focused mainly on product choice and price. Agro-input dealers showed limited understanding of labels and active ingredients. Moreover, 25.0% of shops were selling repackaged products, while 10.5% sold unmarked or unlabeled products. 90.1% of shops were lacking safety equipment. Pesticides of World Health Organization toxicity class I and II were sold most frequently. Awareness of health effects seemed to be high, although agro-input dealers showed incomplete hygiene practices and were lacking infrastructure. One reason for these findings might be that only 55.7% of agro-input dealers held a certificate of competency on safe handling of pesticides and even fewer (5.7%) were able to provide a government-approved up-to-date license. **Conclusion:** The combination of interviews, mystery shopping and observations proved to be useful, allowing the comparison of stated and actual behavior. While agro-input dealers want to sell pesticides and provide the corresponding risk advice, their customers might receive neither the appropriate product nor sufficient advice on proper handling. In light of the expected increase in pesticide use, affordable, accessible and repeated pesticide training and shop inspections are indispensable.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Highly variable flow has to be expected in decentralized greywater treatment and can lead to intermittent operation of the treatment system. However, few studies have addressed the influence of variable flow on the treatment performance of a biological activated carbon filter (BAC). In this study, we investigated the influence of intermittent flow using small-scale BAC columns, which treat greywater as a second treatment step following a membrane bioreactor (MBR). Three operating strategies to respond to variable flow were evaluated. The activated carbon was characterized before and after the experiments in terms of biological activity and sorption capacity. The performance of the BAC filters was assessed based on total organic carbon (TOC) removal, TOC fractions and growth potential. No significant differences were observed between constant flow compared to on-off operation with intermittent flow over the range of tested influent concentrations. Peaks with high TOC during 24 h periods were attenuated by sorption and biological degradation. Adsorbed TOC was released after switching back to normal concentrations for influent concentrations more than 5 times higher than usually observed, the BAC functioned as a temporary sink. In line with these results, the high influent TOC values led to increased biological activity on the filter but did not influence the sorption capacity. The experiments showed that intermittent flow does not negatively impact the performance of a BAC and that there is no need for additional equalization tanks to buffer the variable flow, for example in household-scale greywater treatment.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- The frequent contact people have with liquids containing pathogenic microorganisms provides opportunities for disease transmission. In this work, we quantified the transfer of bacteria - using E. coli as a model- from liquid to skin, estimated liquid retention on the skin after different contact activities (hand immersion, wet-cloth and wet-surface contact), and estimated liquid transfer following hand-to-mouth contacts. The results of our study show that the number of E. coli transferred to the skin per surface area (n [E. coli/cm2]) can be modeled using n = C (10-3.38+h), where C [E. coli/cm3] is the concentration of E. coli in the liquid, and h [cm] is the film thickness of the liquid retained on the skin. Findings from the E. coli transfer experiments reveal a significant difference between the transfer of E. coli from liquid to the skin and the previously reported transfer of viruses to the skin. Additionally, our results demonstrate that the time elapsed since the interaction significantly influences liquid retention, therefore modulating the risks associated with human interaction with contaminated liquids. The findings enhance our understanding of liquid-mediated disease transmission processes and provide quantitative estimates as inputs for microbial risk assessments.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- ## There is [a newer version](https://doi.org/10.25678/00069G) of this dataset. **There is [an older version](https://doi.org/10.25678/0004AV) of this dataset.** The “National Long-term Surveillance of Swiss Rivers” (NADUF) program was initiated in 1972 as a cooperative project between three institutes: + [Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN)](https://www.bafu.admin.ch/bafu/en/home.html) + [Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (EAWAG)](https://www.eawag.ch) + [Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL)](https://www.wsl.ch/en.html) (since 2003) The following institutes participated later: + [Amt für Umwelt und Energie des Kantons Basel-Stadt (AUE)](https://www.aue.bs.ch) + [Federal Institute of Metrology (METAS)](https://www.metas.ch/metas/en/home.html) With the NADUF program, the chemical-physical state of Swiss rivers as well as intermediate-term and long-term changes in concentration are observed. Furthermore, it provides data for scientific studies on biological, chemical and physical processes in river water. The NADUF network serves as a basic data and sampling facility to evaluate the effectiveness of water protection measures and for various scientific projects.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions from wastewater treatment contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions. They have been shown to exhibit a strong seasonal and daily profile in previously conducted monitoring campaigns. However, only two year-long online monitoring campaigns have been published to date. Based on three monitoring campaigns on three full-scale wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) with different activated sludge configurations, each of which lasted at least one year, we propose a refined monitoring strategy for long-term emission monitoring with multiple flux chambers on open tanks. Our monitoring campaigns confirm that the N2O emissions exhibited a strong seasonal profile and were substantial on all three plants (1-2.4% of the total nitrogen load). These results confirm that N2O is the most important greenhouse gas emission from wastewater treatment. The temporal variation was more distinct than the spatial variation within aeration tanks. Nevertheless, multiple monitoring spots along a single lane are crucial to assess representative emission factors in flow-through systems. Sequencing batch reactor systems were shown to exhibit comparable emissions within one reactor but significant variation between parallel reactors. The results indicate that considerable emission differences between lanes are to be expected in cases of inhomogeneous loading and discontinuous feeding. For example, N2O emission could be shown to depend on the amount of treated reject water: lanes without emitted <1% of the influent load, while parallel lanes emitted around 3%. In case of inhomogeneous loading, monitoring of multiple lanes is required. Our study enables robust planning of monitoring campaigns on WWTPs with open tanks. Extensive full-scale emission monitoring campaigns are important as a basis for reliable decisions about reducing the climate impact of wastewater treatment. More specifically, such data sets help us to define general emission factors for wastewater treatment plants and to construct and critically evaluate N2O emission models.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Alpine streams can exhibit naturally high levels of flow intermittency. However, how flow intermittency in alpine streams affects ecosystem functions such as food web trophic structure is virtually unknown. Here, we characterized the trophic diversity of aquatic food webs in 28 headwater streams of the Val Roseg, a glacierized alpine catchment. We compared stable isotope (δ13C and δ15N) trophic indices to high temporal resolution data on flow intermittency. Overall trophic diversity, food chain length, and diversity of basal resource use did not differ to a large extent across streams. In contrast, gradient and mixing model analysis indicated that primary consumers assimilated proportionally more periphyton and less allochthonous organic matter in more intermittent streams. Higher coarse particulate organic matter (CPOM) C:N ratios were an additional driver of changes in macroinvertebrate diets. These results indicate that the trophic base of stream food webs shifts away from terrestrial organic matter to autochthonous organic matter as flow intermittency increases, most likely due to reduced CPOM conditioning in dry streams. This study highlights the significant, yet gradual shifts in ecosystem function that occur as streamflow becomes more intermittent in alpine streams. As alpine streams become more intermittent, identifying which functional changes occur via gradual as opposed to threshold responses is likely to be vitally important to their management and conservation.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- SARS-CoV-2 RNA (N1 and N2 genes) and PMMoV RNA concentrations in primary effluent from the ARA Werdhölzli were determined for the period of September 2020-January 2021. COVID-19 cases in the catchment area are also reported for comparison of RNA concentrations to clinical case data. Data are included in an analysis of COVID-19 disease trajectory overtime.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Biomass distribution among size classes follows a power law where the Log-abundance of taxa scales to Log-size with a slope that responds to environmental abiotic and biotic conditions. The interactions between ecological mechanisms controlling the slope of locally realized size-abundance relationships (SAR) are however not well understood. Here we tested how warming, nutrient levels, and grazing affect the slope of phytoplankton community SARs in decadal time-series from eight Swiss lakes of the peri-alpine region, which underwent environmental forcing due to climate change and oligotrophication. We expected rising temperature to have a negative effect on slope (favoring small phytoplankton), and increasing nutrient levels and grazing pressure to have a positive effect (benefiting large phytoplankton). Using a random forest approach to extract robust patterns from the noisy data, we found that the effects of temperature (direct and indirect through water column stability), nutrient availability (phosphorus and total biomass), and large herbivore (copepods and daphnids) grazing and selectivity on slope were non-linear and interactive. Increasing water temperature or total grazing pressure, and decreasing phosphorus levels, had a positive effect on slope (favoring large phytoplankton, which are predominantly mixotrophic in the lake dataset). Our results therefore showed patterns that were opposite to the expected long-term effects of temperature and nutrient levels, and support a paradigm in which (i) small phototrophic phytoplankton appear to be favored under high nutrients levels, low temperature and low grazing, and (ii) large mixotrophic algae are favored under oligotrophic conditions when temperature and grazing pressure are high. The effects of temperature were stronger under nutrient limitation, and the effects of nutrients and grazing were stronger at high temperature. Our study shows that the phytoplankton local SARs in lakes respond to both the independent and the interactive effects of resources, grazing and water temperature in a complex, unexpected way, and observations from long-term studies can deviate significantly from general theoretical expectations.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Turbulent mixing controls the vertical transfer of heat, gases and nutrients in stratified water bodies, shaping their response to environmental forcing. Nevertheless, due to technical limitations, the redistribution of wind-derived energy fuelling turbulence within stratified lakes has only been mapped over short (sub-annual) timescales. Here we present a year-round observational record of energy fluxes in the large Lake Geneva. Contrary to the standing view, we show that the benthic layers are the main locus for turbulent mixing only during winter. Instead, most turbulent mixing occurs in the water-column interior during the stratified summer season, when the co-occurrence of thermal stability and lighter winds weakens near-sediment currents. Since stratified conditions are becoming more prevalent --possibly reducing turbulent fluxes in deep benthic environments--, these results contribute to the ongoing efforts to anticipate the effects of climate change on freshwater quality and ecosystem services in large lakes.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- The erosion of habitat heterogeneity can reduce species diversity directly but can also lead to the loss of distinctiveness of sympatric species through speciation reversal. We know little about changes in genomic differentiation during the early stages of these processes, which can be mediated by anthropogenic perturbation. Here, we analyse three sympatric whitefish species (Coregonus spp) sampled across two neighbouring and connected Swiss pre‐alpine lakes, which have been differentially affected by anthropogenic eutrophication. Our data set comprises 16,173 loci genotyped across 138 whitefish using restriction‐site associated DNA sequencing (RADseq). Our analysis suggests that in each of the two lakes the population of a different, but ecologically similar, whitefish species declined following a recent period of eutrophication. Genomic signatures consistent with hybridisation are more pronounced in the more severely impacted lake. Comparisons between sympatric pairs of whitefish species with contrasting ecology, where one is shallow benthic and the other one more profundal pelagic, reveal genomic differentiation that is largely correlated along the genome, while differentiation is uncorrelated between pairs of allopatric provenance with similar ecology. We identify four genomic loci that provide evidence of parallel divergent adaptation between the shallow benthic species and the two different more profundal species. Functional annotations available for two of those loci are consistent with divergent ecological adaptation. Our genomic analysis indicates the action of divergent natural selection between sympatric whitefish species in pre‐alpine lakes and reveals the vulnerability of these species to anthropogenic alterations of the environment and associated adaptive landscape.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- ## There is a [newer version of this dataset](https://doi.org/10.25678/00050C)! The “National Long-term Surveillance of Swiss Rivers” (NADUF) program was initiated in 1972 as a cooperative project between three institutes: + [Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN)](https://www.bafu.admin.ch/bafu/en/home.html) + [Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (EAWAG)](https://www.eawag.ch) + [Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL)](https://www.wsl.ch/en.html) (since 2003) With the NADUF program, the chemical-physical state of Swiss rivers as well as intermediate-term and long-term changes in concentration are observed. Furthermore, it provides data for scientific studies on biological, chemical and physical processes in river water. The NADUF network serves as a basic data and sampling facility to evaluate the effectiveness of water protection measures and for various scientific projects.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- In agricultural areas, insecticides inevitably reach water bodies via leaching or run-off. While designed to be neurotoxic to insects, insecticides have adverse effects on a multitude of organisms due to the high conservation of the nervous system among phyla. To estimate ecological effects of insecticides, it is important to investigate their impact on non-target organisms such as fish. Using the zebrafish as model, we investigated how different classes of insecticides influence fish behavior and uncovered neuronal underpinnings of the behavioral changes providing an unprecedented insight into the perception of these chemicals by fish. We observed that zebrafish larvae avoid diazinon and imidacloprid while showing no response to other insecticides with the same mode of action. Moreover, ablation of olfaction abolished the aversive responses, indicating that fish smelled the insecticides. Assessment of neuronal activity in 289 brain regions showed that hypothalamic areas involved in stress response were among the regions with the largest changes, indicating that the observed behavioral response resembles reactions to stimuli that threaten the homeostasis, such as changes in water chemistry. Our results contribute to the understanding of the environmental impact of insecticide exposure and can help refining acute toxicity assessment.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Synthetic water-soluble polymeric materials are widely employed in e.g. cleaning detergents, personal care products, paints or textiles. Accordingly, these compounds reach sewage treatment plants and may enter receiving waters and the aquatic environment. Characteristically, these molecules show a polydisperse molecular weight distribution, comprising multiple repeating units, i.e. a homologous series (HS). Their analysis in environmentally relevant samples has received some attention over the last two decades, however, the majority of previous studies focused on surfactants and a molecular weight range <1000 Da. To capture a wider range on the mass versus polarity plane and extend towards less polar contaminants, a workflow was established using three different ionization strategies, namely conventional electrospray ionization, atmospheric pressure photoionization and atmospheric pressure chemical ionization. The data evaluation consisted of suspect screening of ca. 1200 suspect entries and a non-target screening of HS with pre-defined accurate mass differences using ca. 400 molecular formulas of repeating units of HS as input and repeating retention time shifts as HS indicator. To study the fate of these water-soluble polymeric substances in the wastewater treatment process, the different stages, i.e. after primary and secondary clarifier, and after ozonation followed by sand filtration, were sampled at a Swiss wastewater treatment plant. Remaining with two different ionization interfaces, ESI and APPI, in both polarities, a non-targeted screening approach led to a total number of 146 HS (each with a minimum number of 4 members), with a molecular mass of up to 1200 detected in the final effluent. Of the 146 HS, ca 15% could be associated with suspect hits and approximately 25% with transformation products of suspects. Tentative characterization or probable chemical structure could be assigned to almost half of the findings. In positive ionization mode various sugar derivatives with differing side chains, for negative mode structures with sulfonic acids, could be characterized. The number of detected HS decreased significantly over the three treatment stages. For HS detectable also in the biological and oxidative treatment stages, a change in HS distribution towards to lower mass range was often observed.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- The production of volatile fatty acids (VFAs) represents a relevant option to valorize municipal wastewater (MWW). In this context, different capture technologies can be used to recover organic carbon from wastewater in form of solids, while pre-treatment of those solids has the potential to increase VFA production during subsequent fermentation. Our study investigates how VFA composition produced by fermentation is influenced (i) by the choice of the capture technology, as well as (ii) by the use of thermal alkaline pre-treatment (TAP). Therefore, the fermentation of solids originating from a primary settler, a micro-sieve, and a high-rate activated sludge (HRAS) system was investigated in continuous lab-scale fermenters, with and without TAP. Our study demonstrates that the capture technology strongly influences the composition of the produced solids, which in turn drives the complexity of the fermenter’s microbial community and ultimately, of the VFA composition. Solids captured with the primary settler or micro-sieve consisted primarily of polysaccharides, and led to the establishment of a microbial community specialized in the degradation of complex carbohydrates. The produced VFA composition was relatively simple, with acetate and propionate accounting for >90% of the VFAs. In contrast, the HRAS system produced biomass-rich solids associated with higher protein contents. The microbial community which then developed in the fermenter was therefor more diversified and capable of converting a wider range of substrates (polysaccharides, proteins, amino acids). Ultimately, the produced VFA composition was more complex, with equal fractions of iso-acids and propionate (both ~20%), while acetate remained the dominant acid (~50%). Finally, TAP did not significantly modify the VFA composition while increasing VFA yields on HRAS and sieved material by 35% and 20%, respectively. Overall, we demonstrated that the selection of the technology used to capture organic substrates from MWW governs the composition of the VFA cocktail, ultimately with implications for their further utilization.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Novel technologies allow to reuse or recycle water for on-site applications such as toilet flushing, showering, or hand washing at the household- or building-scale. Many of these technologies have now reached technology readiness levels that require for verification and validation testing in the field. Results from such field tests of decentralized water reuse systems have been published over the past few years, and observed performance is often compared to quality targets from water reuse frameworks (WRFs). An inspection of ten recent journal publications reveals that targets from WRFs are often misinterpreted, and the emphasis of these publications is too often on demonstrating successful aspects of the technologies rather than critically evaluating the quality of the produced water. We hypothesize that some of these misinterpretations are due to ambiguous definition of scopes of WRFs (e.g., “unrestricted urban reuse”) and unclear applicability for novel recycling systems that treat the water for applications that go beyond the reuse scopes defined in current WRFs. Additional challenges are linked to the verification of WRF quality targets in small-scale and decentralized systems under economic and organizational constraints. Current WRFs are not suitable for all possible reuse cases. There is need for a critical discussion of quality targets and associated monitoring methods. As the scope of water reuse has expanded greatly over the past years, WRFs need to address new applications and advances in technology, including in monitoring capacities.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Stream biofilms have been shown to be among the most sensitive indicators of environmental stress in aquatic ecosystems and several endpoints have been developed to measure biofilm adverse effects caused by environmental stressors. Here, we compare the effects of long-term exposure of stream biofilms to diuron, a commonly used herbicide, on several traditional ecotoxicological endpoints (biomass growth, photosynthetic efficiency, chlorophyll-a content, and taxonomic composition), with the effects measured by recently developed methods [community structure assessed by flow cytometry (FC-CS) and measurement of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS)]. Biofilms grown from local stream water in recirculating microcosms were exposed to a constant concentration of 20 μg/L diuron over a period of 3 weeks. During the experiment, we observed temporal variation in photosynthetic efficiency, biomass, cell size, presence of decaying cells and in the EPS protein fraction. While biomass growth, photosynthetic efficiency, and chlorophyll-a content were treatment independent, the effects of diuron were detectable with both FC and EPS measurements. This demonstrates that, at least for our experimental setup, a combination of different ecotoxicological endpoints can be important for evaluating biofilm environmental stress and suggests that the more recent ecotoxicological endpoints (FC-CS, EPS protein content and humic substances) can be a useful addition for stream biofilm ecotoxicological assessment.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- River networks are one of the main routes by which the public could be exposed to environmental sources of antibiotic resistance, that may be introduced e.g. via treated wastewater. In this study, we applied a comprehensive integrated analysis encompassing mass-flow concepts, chemistry, bacterial plate counts, resistance gene quantification and shotgun metagenomics to track the fate of the resistome (collective antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in a microbial community) of treated wastewater in two Swiss rivers at the kilometer scale. The levels of certain ARGs and the class 1 integron integrase gene (intI1) commonly associated with anthropogenic sources of ARGs decreased quickly over short distances (2-2.5 km) downstream of wastewater discharge points. Mass-flow analysis based on conservative tracers suggested this decrease was attributable mainly to dilution but ARG loadings frequently also decreased (e.g., 55.0-98.5 % for ermB and tetW) over the longest studied distances (6.8 and 13.7 km downstream). Metagenomic analysis confirmed that ARG of wastewater-origin did not persist in rivers after 5 ∼ 6.8 km downstream distance. sul1 and intI1 levels and loadings were more variable and even increased sharply at 5 ∼ 6.8 km downstream distance on one occasion. While input from agriculture and in-situ positive selection pressure for organisms carrying ARGs cannot be excluded, in-system growth of biomass is a more probable explanation. The potential for direct human exposure to the resistome of wastewater-origin thus appeared to typically abate rapidly in the studied rivers. However, the riverine aquatic resistome was also dynamic, as evidenced by the increase of certain gene markers downstream, without obvious sources of anthropogenic contamination. This study provides new insight into drivers of riverine resistomes and pinpoints key monitoring targets indicative of where human sources and exposures are likely to be most acute.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- ## There is [a newer version](https://doi.org/10.25678/0006DM) of this dataset. This package contains the supplementary information (SI) of chapter 2 of the dissertation of Frederik T. Weiss with the Dissertation No. ETH 27434 (defended: 24th February, 2021), entitled: "Pesticides in a tropical Costa Rican stream catchment: from monitoring and risk assessment to the identification of possible mitigation options". Generally within this thesis the supplementary information (SI) is divided into three parts (SI A, SI B, SI C). For each chapter, SI A section contains background information/data for the reader with quick and easy access added directly after each main chapter. SI B contains raw data, further processed data for analysis, and figures of processed data presented as Excel files. SI C combines the R scripts with information and commands utilized for the statistical analysis. The abstract of chapter 2 reads as follows: "For monitoring of pesticides in tropical streams, cost-efficient and easily applicable approaches are needed. Moreover, to capture short pesticide concentration peaks, a time-integrated sampling is preferable to conventional snapshot grab sampling. Passive sampling approaches fulfil these criteria. Therefore, this chapter focusses on the application of three passive sampling devices to monitor 275 pesticides and pesticide transformation products (PPTP) in the horticultural Tapezco river catchment over several months in two consecutive years. Two of the samplers were sorbent-based: reverse phase sulfonated styrene-divinylbenzene (SDB) disks and polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) sheets, yielding biweekly integrated averaged PPTP concentrations. The third sampler was a low-cost, non-sorbent-based, water level proportional sampling system (WLPSS), yielding water level-weighted, biweekly integrated PPTP concentrations. The objectives were to (1) test the performance and robustness of these samplers (2) obtain comprehensive quantitative pesticide concentration data and (3) provide recommendations for their field application in future monitoring campaigns. Of the 275 targeted PPTP, 87 polar and semi-polar PPTP were detected with the SDB method and 99 with the WLPSS, of which 77 were found with both systems. In several cases (10 with SDB, 22 with WLPSS), a pesticide was only detected by one of the set-ups; this exclusive detection could be due to the respective substance concentrations being close to or below the method limit of quantification (MLOQ) for the sampler where it was not detected. Despite the different sampling principles for SDB and WLPSS, the same pesticides (carbendazim and flutolanil) were found with the highest median water concentrations (> 100 ng/L) with both samplers. The complementary PDMS system allowed detection of 11 non-polar pesticides. Among these, cypermethrin, chlorpyrifos and permethrin showed the highest concentrations (> 2 ng/L). Chlorpyrifos was the only pesticide detected with all three sampling techniques. Standard deviations for detected chlorpyrifos concentrations were the highest for SDB sampling, likely due to a lag-phase in sampling across the membrane covering the sampler due to the chemical’s high hydrophobicity. Moreover, derived chlorpyrifos water concentrations were significantly higher using the WLPSS compared to SDB and PDMS sampling. This was also seen for another six pesticides sampled with the WLPSS compared to SDB sampling. Higher concentrations detected via WLPSS can be explained by the ability of the WLPSS to collect pesticide peaks associated with heavy rainfall events and linked to rise of water levels in a more pronounced fashion as compared to the time-integrated sampling manner of the SDB and PDMS samplers. Yet, only a small portion, 15%, of the WLPSS samples collected, could be used to yield water level-weighted, time-integrated concentration (CWLW) data, calling for a need to further optimize and standardize the application of this device. Of the devices tested, the SDB disks were the easiest to apply and the most cost-efficient for short-term monitoring campaigns. The SDB sampling can be conducted in sparsely equipped laboratory facilities, while for the PDMS sheets and the WLPSS, sample preparation and extraction are technically more demanding."1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Salmonids are of particular interest to evolutionary biologists due to their incredible diversity of life-history strategies and the speed at which many salmonid species have diversified. In Switzerland alone, over 30 species of Alpine whitefish from the subfamily Coregoninae have evolved since the last glacial maximum, with species exhibiting a diverse range of morphological and behavioural phenotypes. This, combined with the whole genome duplication which occurred in the ancestor of all salmonids, makes the Alpine whitefish radiation a particularly interesting system in which to study the genetic basis of adaptation and speciation and the impacts of ploidy changes and subsequent rediploidization on genome evolution. Although well curated genome assemblies exist for many species within Salmonidae, genomic resources for the subfamily Coregoninae are lacking. To assemble a whitefish reference genome, we carried out PacBio sequencing from one wild-caught Coregonus sp. "Balchen" from Lake Thun to ~90x coverage. PacBio reads were assembled independently using three different assemblers, Falcon, Canu and wtdbg2 and subsequently scaffolded with additional Hi-C data. All three assemblies were highly contiguous, had strong synteny to a previously published Coregonus linkage map, and when mapping additional short-read data to each of the assemblies, coverage was fairly even across most chromosome-scale scaffolds. Here, we present the first de novo genome assembly for the Salmonid subfamily Coregoninae. The final 2.2 Gb wtdbg2 assembly included 40 scaffolds, an N50 of 51.9 Mb, and was 93.3% complete for BUSCOs. The assembly consisted of ~52% TEs and contained 44,525 genes.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Mooring with temperature and pressure loggers on lake Silvaplana to observe ice growing and inverse stratification1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- This package contains the data and code necessary to run the Active Learning experiments for Anomaly detection. The dataset used for this study is a timeseries data in high spatiotemporal resolution from a long term ecological experiment ("NUtrients, DREissena mussels, and Macrophytes - NUDREM")1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- When lakes experience surface cooling, the shallow littoral region cools faster than the deep pelagic waters. The lateral density gradient resulting from this differential cooling can trigger a cold downslope density current that intrudes at the base of the mixed layer during stratified conditions. This process is known as a thermal siphon (TS). A TS flushes the littoral region and increases water exchange between nearshore and pelagic zones and may thus potentially impact the lake ecosystem. Past observations of TS in lakes are limited to specific cooling events. Here, we focus on the seasonality of TS-induced lateral transport and investigate how seasonally varying forcing conditions control the occurrence and intensity of TS. This research interprets one-year-long TS observations from Rotsee (Switzerland), a small wind-sheltered temperate lake with an elongated shallow region. We demonstrate that a TS occurs for more than 50 % of the days from late summer to winter and efficiently flushes the littoral region within ~10 hours. We further quantify the occurrence, intensity and timing of the TS over seasonal time scales. The conditions for TS formation become optimal in autumn when the duration of the cooling phase is longer than the time necessary to initiate a TS. The decrease in surface cooling by one order of magnitude from summer to winter reduces the lateral transport by a factor of two. We interpret this transport seasonality with scaling relationships relating the daily averaged cross-shore velocity, unit-width discharge and flushing timescale to the surface buoyancy flux, mixed layer depth and lake bathymetry. The timing and duration of diurnal flushing by TS relate to daily heating and cooling phases. The longer cooling phase in autumn increases the flushing duration and delays the time of maximal flushing relative to the summer diurnal cycle. Given their scalability, the results reported here can be used to assess the relevance of TS in other lakes and reservoirs.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- In sechs kleinen bis mittelgrossen Fliessgewässern wurden die für aquatische Organismen extrem toxischen Pyrethroid- und Organophosphatinsektizide mittels einer Spezialanalytik bis in den Picogramm pro-Liter Bereich quantifiziert. An fünf der sechs untersuchten Standorte überschritten die gemessenen Insektizidkonzentrationen regelmässig chronische und zum Teil akute Qualitätskriterien und die chronische Mischungsrisiko¬bewertung zeigte während 43-100% des Untersuchungszeitraums hohe Risiken für die Invertebratengemeinschaft an. Werden Pyrethroid- und Organophosphatinsektizide nicht in die Beurteilung der Gewässerqualität miteinbezogen, kann das Gesamtrisiko für aquatische Organismen erheblich unterschätzt werden.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- In this study we sampled Lake Rotsee, Greifensee, Zug and Lugano to derive general patterns of methane-oxidizing bacteria in proximity to the oxygen-methane interface of these four stratified lakes. We used Illumina amplicon sequencing for the analysis of the 16S rRNA and the 16S rRNA gene as well as pmoA gene and transcripts together with potential methane oxidation rates based on incubations with 13C-CH4.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- ## There is [a newer version](https://doi.org/10.25678/0006CK) of this dataset. This package contains the supplementary information (SI) of chapter 3 of the dissertation of Frederik T. Weiss with the Dissertation No. ETH 27434 (defended: 24th February, 2021), entitled: "Pesticides in a tropical Costa Rican stream catchment: from monitoring and risk assessment to the identification of possible mitigation options". Generally within this thesis the supplementary information (SI) is divided into three parts (SI A, SI B, SI C). For each chapter, SI A section contains background information/data for the reader with quick and easy access added directly after each main chapter. SI B contains raw data, further processed data for analysis, and figures of processed data presented as Excel files. SI C combines the R scripts with information and commands utilized for the statistical analysis. The abstract of chapter 3 reads as follows: "A pesticide monitoring in the Tapezco river catchment region in two subsequent years (2015/2016) revealed that intensive pesticide use leads to contamination of streams. As shown in Chapter 2, 87 pesticide and pesticide transformation products (PPTP), comprising insecticides, herbicides, fungicides and several of their transformation products (TP) were identified by applying sorbent-based passive sampling approaches at the five (2015), respectively eight (2016), sub-catchment (SC) sites. Using these monitoring data as a basis, the first aim of this study was to exploit the measured environmental concentrations (MEC) of the PPTP with regard to their spatio-temporal distribution among the different sampling sites in the Tapezco river catchment. To enable a comparison between the two sampling years, of the 87 detected PPTP, the data set was narrowed down to those which were found in both sampling years, leading to a subset of 62 PPTP. Two MEC-based risk assessment approaches, one relying on Environmental Quality Standards (EQS) and the other on the Toxic Units (TU) concept focusing on invertebrates, were used to identify if the PPTP pose health risks to aquatic biota either singly or in mixture. As well, available macroinvertebrate data for four sites (SC1, SC4, SC5 and SC8) was evaluated in view of the indicated water quality, applying the species at risk pesticide (SPEARpesticide), the Costa Rican Biological Monitoring Working Party (BMWP-CR) Index, and the Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera and Tricoptera (EPT)-taxa richness indices. For the 62 considered PPTP, spatial trends were observed. In more detail, at two connected sites (SC2 and SC3), the average number of PPTP was 2-fold lower compared to the six remaining sites. At all sites, insecticides had the broadest detected spectrum as opposed to the numbers of individual herbicides and fungicides. Conversely, at all sites and periods, fungicides had the highest average %contribution of the average sum-concentration among the individual detected pesticide types. Independent of the risk assessment approach applied, the quality of the water was indicated to be generally poor, pointing at chronic, and even acute effects to be expected for aquatic communities at all sampling sites. Invertebrates were the most affected organism group based on EQS and TU without any apparent time window to recover from pesticide stress during both sampling years. The SPEARpesticide and the BMWP-CR indices both indicated that, despite the continuous pesticide pollution stress at all sites, water quality seemed to be improved at SC5 and reached even a good to regular water quality at the most downstream site (SC8) compared to the other remaining sites (SC1 and SC4) for which macroinvertebrate data was available. The EPT-taxa richness index showed as well an improvement in water quality at SC8. This finding could be due to a larger river stretch upstream to the sampling site with no horticultural land and high share of natural forest. Given that all applied approaches confirmed substantial risks, there is an urgent need for a reduction of pesticides in streams of the Tapezoco catchment to improve the water quality in order to protect aquatic communities in these streams."1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Log removal values for phages, chemical disinfectant, or combined treatment on surface-attached Pseudomonas aeruginosa.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- This checklist serves to guide a general review of a data package submitted to the Eawag Research Data Repository. A General review, as opposed to a domain specific review can be conducted by people without expertise in the scientific field the data package relates to.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Abstract Lakes and reservoirs contribute substantially to atmospheric concentrations of the potent greenhouse gas methane. Lacustrine sediments produce large amounts of methane, which accumulate in oxygen-depleted hypolimnia of stratified lakes. Due to climate change and progressing eutrophication, the number of lakes with hypolimnetic methane storage may increase in the future. However, whether stored methane eventually reaches the atmosphere during lake overturn is a matter of controversy and depends critically on the response of the methanotroph assemblage. We show that the methanotroph assemblage in a mixing lake undergoes a substantial bloom and ecological succession. As a result, the methane oxidation capacity of the mixed layer kept pace with the methane supplied from the hypolimnion and most of the stored methane was oxidized. Our work demonstrates a previously unknown component of freshwater methanotroph ecology illuminating the mechanisms limiting methane transfer from lakes to the atmosphere.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- To protect the ecosystem and drinking water resources in Switzerland and in the countries of the downstream catchments, a new Swiss water protection act entered into force in 2016 aiming to reduce the discharge of micropollutants from wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). As a consequence, selected WWTPs must be upgraded by an advanced treatment for micropollutant abatement with suitable and economic options such as (powdered) activated carbon treatment or ozonation. WWTP Neugut (105’000 people equivalent) was the first WWTP in Switzerland to implement a long-term full-scale ozonation. Differing specific ozone doses in the range of 0.35-0.97 g O3/g DOC were applied to determine the adequate ozone dose to fulfill the requirements of the Swiss water protection act. Based on this assessment, a specific ozone dose of 0.55 g O3/g DOC is recommended at this plant to ensure an average abatement of the twelve selected indicator substances by ≥80% over the whole treatment. A monitoring of 550 substances confirmed that this dose was very efficient to abate a broad range of micropollutants by >79% on average. After ozonation, an additional biological post-treatment is required to eliminate possible negative ecotoxicological effects generated during ozonation caused by biodegradable ozonation transformation products (OTPs) and oxidation by-products (OBPs). Three biological treatments (sand filtration, moving bed, fixed bed) and granular activated carbon (GAC, fresh and pre-loaded) filtration were evaluated as post-treatments after ozonation. In parallel, a fresh GAC filter directly connected to the effluent of the secondary clarifier was assessed. Among the three purely biological post-treatments, the sand filtration performed best in terms of removal of dissolved organic carbon (DOC), assimilable organic carbon (AOC) and total suspended solids (TSS). The fresh activated carbon filtration ensured a significant additional micropollutants abatement after ozonation due to sorption. The relative abatement of the indicator substances ranged between 20-89% after 27’000 bed volumes (BV) and was still substantial at 50’000 BV. In an identical GAC filter running in parallel and being fed with the effluent of the secondary clarifier, the elimination was less efficient. Seven primary OTPs (chlorothiazide and six N-oxides) formed during ozonation could be quantified thanks to available reference standards. Their concentration decreased with increasing specific ozone doses with the concomitant formation of other OTPs. The seven OTPs were found to be stable compounds and were not abated in the biological post-treatments. They were sorbed in the fresh GAC filter, but less efficiently than the corresponding parent compounds. Two OBPs, bromate (BrO3-) and N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA), were formed during ozonation but did not exceeded 5 µg/L for bromate and 30 ng/L for NDMA at the recommended specific ozone dose of 0.55 g O3/g DOC. NDMA was well abated in all post-treatments (minimum 41% during fixed bed filtration, maximum 83% during fresh GAC filtration), while bromate was very stable as expected.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Stochastic hydrological process models have two conceptual advantages over deterministic models. First, even though water flow in a well-defined environment is governed by deterministic differential equations, a hydrological system, at the level we can observe it, does not behave deterministically. Reasons for this behavior are unobserved spatial heterogeneity and fluctuations of input, unobserved influence factors, heterogeneity and variability in soil and aquifer properties, and an imprecisely known initial state. A stochastic model provides thus a more realistic description of the system than a deterministic model. Second, hydrological models simplify real processes. The resulting structural deficits can better be accounted for by stochastic than by deterministic models because they, even for given parameters and input, allow for a probability distribution of different system evolutions rather than a single trajectory. On the other hand, stochastic process models are more susceptible to identifiability problems and Bayesian inference is computationally much more demanding. In this paper, we review the use of stochastic, time-dependent parameters to make deterministic models stochastic, discuss options for the numerical implementation of Bayesian inference, and investigate the potential and challenges of this approach with a case study. We demonstrate how model deficits can be identified and reduced, and how the suggested approach leads to a more realistic description of the uncertainty of internal and output variables of the model compared to a deterministic model. In addition, multiple stochastic parameters with different correlation times could explain the variability in the time scale of output error fluctuations identified in an earlier study.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- On-site wastewater treatment plants (OSTs) are usually unattended, so failures often remain undetected and lead to prolonged periods of reduced performance. To stabilize the performance of unattended plants, soft sensors could expose faults and failures to the operator. In a previous study, we developed soft sensors and showed that soft sensors with data from unmaintained physical sensors can be as accurate as soft sensors with data from maintained ones. The monitored variables were pH and dissolved oxygen (DO), and soft sensors were used to predict nitrification performance. In the present study, we use synthetic data and monitor three plants to test these soft sensors. We find that a long solids retention time and a moderate aeration rate improve the pH soft-sensor accuracy and that the aeration regime is the main operational parameter affecting the accuracy of the DO soft sensor. We demonstrate that integrated design of monitoring and control is necessary to achieve robustness when extrapolating from one OST to another in the absence of plant-specific fine-tuning. Additionally, we provide a unique labeled dataset for further feature and data-driven soft-sensor development. Our benchmarking results indicate that it is feasible to monitor OSTs with unmaintained sensors and without plant-specific tuning of the developed soft sensors. This is expected to drastically reduce monitoring costs for OST-based sanitation systems.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- # Data for: Transfer of Enteric Viruses Adenovirus and Coxsackievirus and Bacteriophage MS2 from Liquid to Human Skin The data were collected, analyzed, and reported within the following publication: Pitol AK, Bischel HN, Boehm AB, Tamar K, Julian TR. 2018. Transfer of Enteric Viruses Adenovirus and Coxsackievirus and Bacteriophage MS2 from Liquid to Human Skin. Appl Environ Mcrobiology 84:1–13. < https:// doi.org/10.1128/AEM.01809-18> ## File virustransferwatertoskin.csv The data set contains the following attributes: + Cw: Concentration of virus in the liquid (PFU/mL or MPN/mL) + Ch.un: Number of unadsorbed virus on the skin per surface area (PFU/cm2 or MPN/cm2) + Ch.ad: Number of bacteriophages adsorbed on the skin per surface area (PFU/cm2 or MPN/cm2) + virus: Virus used in the study (adenovirus, coxsackievirus, or bacteriophage MS2) Note: The number of virus is expressed in Plaque Forming Units (PFU) in the case of bacteriophage MS2, and Most Probable Number (MPN) in the case of adenovirus and coxsackievirus.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- This package contains the supplementary information (SI) of chapter 4 of the dissertation of Frederik T. Weiss with the Dissertation No. ETH 27434 (defended: 24th February, 2021), entitled: "Pesticides in a tropical Costa Rican stream catchment: from monitoring and risk assessment to the identification of possible mitigation options". Generally within this thesis the supplementary information (SI) is divided into three parts (SI A, SI B, SI C). For each chapter, SI A section contains background information/data for the reader with quick and easy access added directly after each main chapter. SI B contains raw data, further processed data for analysis, and figures of processed data presented as Excel files. SI C combines the R scripts with information and commands utilized for the statistical analysis. The abstract of chapter 4 reads as follows: "Finding targeted strategies to mitigate entry of pesticides into surface waters in areas of intense agriculture is challenging. This holds especially true in little studied areas with very distinct topographic characteristics and unconventional field cultivation practices, such as in the tropical Tapezco river catchment in Costa Rica. Within this catchment, areas with steep slopes are used for intense horticultural farming of mainly vegetables. This is exclusively done by a farming practice similar to contour farming, the practice of tilling land with furrows along parallel lines of consistent elevation in order to conserve rainwater and to prevent soil losses by erosion. At the same time, slope-directed paths are implemented to act as drainage system to avoid stagnant water on the fields during heavy rain events, though as well connecting the fields directly with the streams, which enable a fast pesticide transport. Indeed, a significant contamination of streams with pesticides and pesticide transformation products (PPTP) throughout the Tapezco river catchment has been confirmed, leading to considerable toxicological risks to aquatic communities, urgently calling for effective mitigation strategies to reduce PPTP inputs. To identify how PPTP are transported from horticultural areas into streams of the Tapezco river catchment, different PPTP transportation pathways were considered. The first investigated pathway was via handling practices of pesticides by farmers and field workers, where inappropriate handling was proposed to lead to sporadically distributed pesticide inputs unrelated to hydrology. The second studied pathway was surface run-off. Typically, heavy precipitation events are found to be important drivers for the surface-based transport of pesticides into the streams. Thus, such pesticide inputs can be assumed to correlate positively with water levels in the receiving streams. Surface run-off is additionally favored by the slope-directed paths on the fields, which directly connect fields with the streams. Therefore, the influence of prevalent topographical and hydrological variables on PPTP inputs via surface run-offs were studies within this thesis. The third potential investigated input pathway was the leaching of pesticides into the ground from where pesticides can enter streams via exfiltration through river banks. This path would be expected to lead to a constant input that is negatively correlated with water levels. To investigate the role of these pathways in transporting PPTP into the streams, pesticide peaks unrelated to hydrology were identified based on measured environmental concentrations (MEC) of PPTP and compared with water level time series. Survey data about pesticide handling practices were evaluated additionally. Temporal PPTP distributions were investigated during three sampling periods (ΔT1, Δ2a, Δ2b) within 2015 and 2016 and spatial trends were studied at eight sub-catchment (SC) sites. In addition, knowledge on the topography (share of horticultural land, share of forest in the 100 m stream buffer zone, average slopes of the horticultural fields) and hydrology (median water level factors) was considered. These variables were referred to as explanatory variables while 20-, 50- and 80-percentiles of MEC were considered dependent variables. The explanatory and dependent variables were correlated via linear regression modelling for identifying the most important determinants of PPTP transport. There, 20-percentiles represent a scenario with low precipitations, no or low surface run-offs and low PPTP inputs; 50-percentiles a scenario with medium precipitations, resulting in medium surface run-offs and PPTP inputs; and 80-percentiles a scenario with high precipitations, heavy surface run-offs and high PPTP inputs into streams. With a focus on potential mitigation measures achieving the highest effectiveness for reducing risks to aquatic biota, analyses were performed on a sub-set of PPTP that dominated the risks to aquatic organisms, along with three transformation products (TP) to calculate TP/PPTP ratios as a measure of pesticide residence time. The correlation analysis of the PPTP input pathways was again based on eight SC sites. The input of three pesticides were very likely due to inappropriate handling. For five additional pesticides, the input via inappropriate handling seemed probable. Temporal exposure trends were observed by comparing the MEC during the sampling period with reduced precipitation (ΔT1, in 2015) with the MEC detected at periods with normal precipitations (Δ2a, Δ2b, in 2016). In addition, spatial trends were investigated by conducting a cluster analysis with the MEC PPTP data (20-, 50- and 80-percentiles) among the different sites. Particularly the pesticide distributions at SC2 and SC3 were different compared to other sites (SC1, SC4, SC6, SC7 and SC8). However, except for the 20-percentile scenario, the pesticide distribution at SC5 was similar compared to that at SC2 and SC3, forming one sub-cluster. Linear regression models helped to find relationships between two explanatory variables, namely, the share of forest in the buffer zone, and mean slopes of horticultural fields, and the dependent variable, MEC percentiles in streams. For five PPTP, boscalid, diazinon, diuron-desdimethyl, linuron and prometryn + terbutryn the percentile concentrations decreased significantly with increasing share of forest in 100 m river buffer zone considering all scenarios. With regard to the horticultural mean slope, for cyhalothrin and thiamethoxam, the percentile concentrations increased with increasing mean slopes of the horticultural areas for all three scenarios. A high share of forest in the buffer zone worked generally as barrier for input via surface run-off, but not for all PPTP. For the fungicide, carbendazim, increased average slopes did not favor the input into the streams and inputs were low even at sites with horticultural areas with a high mean slope (80 percentile scenario). By analyzing groundwater samples it became apparent that, especially in SC with horticultural fields with low average slopes, a leaching of PPTP into groundwater and further transport into the streams via exfiltration might be possible. Based on this assessment, three avenues for mitigating input of PPTP into the streams could be deduced: to provide training workshops for better handling as well as biobeds for proper disposal; to avoid cultivation of crops in high need insecticides on steep slopes; and to establish forested buffer zones between the fields and the streams."1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Genetic linkage maps are essential for comparative genomics, high quality genome sequence assembly and fine scale quantitative trait locus (QTL) mapping. In the present study we identified and genotyped markers via restriction-site associated DNA (RAD) sequencing and constructed a genetic linkage map based on 1,597 SNP markers of an interspecific F2 cross of two closely related Lake Victoria cichlids (Pundamilia pundamilia and P. sp. 'red head'). The SNP markers were distributed on 22 linkage groups and the total map size was 1,594 cM with an average marker distance of 1.01 cM. This high-resolution genetic linkage map was used to anchor the scaffolds of the Pundamilia genome and estimate recombination rates along the genome. Via QTL mapping we identified a major QTL for sex in a ∼1.9 Mb region on Pun-LG10, which is homologous to Oreochromis niloticus LG 23 (Ore-LG23) and includes a well-known vertebrate sex-determination gene (amh).1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- This data has been used to generate sanitation system options for three Kebeles of Arba Minch Town (Ethiopia) and to quantify corresponding appropriateness scores as well as phosphorus, nitrogen, total solids, and water flows. The data contains input and output data for the three Kebeles which are Chamo, Mehal Ketema, and Woze. The input data are stored in a csv file with the compiled information on the 38 technologies collected from literature. This includes the technology appropriateness profiles and scores and the transfer coefficients of the four substances in question. From the 38 technologies, 67470 valid sanitation systems could be generated. Results include for each Kebele: (1) technology appropriateness scores; (2) all valid sanitation system configurations; (3) the system appropriateness scores; (4) mass flows; and (5) a a smaller set of divers and highly appropriate sanitation system options as an input into decision-making.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Plankton are effective indicators of environmental change and ecosystem health in freshwater habitats, but collection of plankton data using manual microscopic methods is extremely labor-intensive and expensive. Automated plankton imaging offers a promising way forward to monitor plankton communities with high frequency and accuracy in real-time. Yet, manual annotation of millions of images proposes a serious challenge to taxonomists. Deep learning classifiers have been successfully applied in various fields and provided encouraging results when used to categorize marine plankton images. Here, we present a set of deep learning models developed for the identification of lake plankton, and study several strategies to obtain optimal performances, which lead to operational prescriptions for users. To this aim, we annotated into 35 classes over 17900 images of zooplankton and large phytoplankton colonies, detected in Lake Greifensee (Switzerland) with the Dual Scripps Plankton Camera. Our best models were based on transfer learning and ensembling, which classified plankton images with 98% accuracy and 93% F1 score. When tested on freely available plankton datasets produced by other automated imaging tools (ZooScan, FlowCytobot and ISIIS), our models performed better than previously used models. Our annotated data, code and classification models are freely available online.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- This package contains image data for conducting multi- and single-view sewer inlet detection in UAV image clouds. The package consists in: - individual UAV images, taken with high overlap and corrected for lens distortion - orthophoto of the case study area, clipped to road boundaries1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- The analysis of larval zebrafish locomotor behavior has emerged as a powerful indicator of perturbations in the nervous system and is used in many fields of research, including neuroscience, toxicology and drug discovery. The behavior of larval zebrafish however, is highly variable, resulting in the use of large numbers of animals and the inability to detect small effects. In this study, we analyzed whether individual locomotor behavior is stable over development and whether behavioral parameters correlate with physiological and morphological features, with the aim of better understanding the variability and predictability of larval locomotor behavior. Our results reveal that locomotor activity of an individual larva remains consistent throughout a given day and is predictable throughout larval development, especially during dark phases, under which larvae demonstrate light-searching behaviors and increased activity. The larvae’s response to startle-stimuli was found to be unpredictable, with no correlation found between response strength and locomotor activity. Furthermore, locomotor activity was not associated with physiological or morphological features of a larva (resting heart rate, body length, size of the swim bladder). Overall, our findings highlight the areas of intra-individual consistency, which could be used to improve the sensitivity of assays using zebrafish locomotor activity as an endpoint.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Thallium (Tl) is a highly toxic trace metal. It occurs mostly as soluble monovalent Tl(I) and less frequently as poorly soluble trivalent Tl(III). Laboratory studies have shown that vacancy-containing hexagonal birnessites can sorb Tl with a very high affinity via a mechanism that involves the oxidation of Tl(I) to Tl(III) and strong complexation of Tl(III), whereas other manganese (Mn) oxides bind Tl(I) non-oxidatively and with lower sorption affinity. Information on the mode of Tl uptake by natural Mn oxides in soils, on the other hand, is still limited. In this study, we characterized the association of Tl with Mn oxides and Tl (redox) speciation in a naturally Tl-rich soil using micro-focused synchrotron X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) spectroscopy and X-ray fluorescence (XRF) chemical imaging. The results show that most soil Tl was Tl(I) associated with micaceous clay minerals in the soil matrix. High levels of Tl in soil Mn concretions, on the other hand, were mostly identified as Tl(III), suggesting that oxidative Tl uptake by vacancy-containing hexagonal birnessite was the main process of Tl accumulation in soil Mn concretions. The spectroscopic results in combination with chemical extractions and published sorption isotherms for Tl on synthetic Mn oxides suggest that the formation and transformation of natural Mn oxides in soils and sorption competition of Tl with major and trace metal cations determine the extent and mode of Tl uptake by soil Mn oxides. Methodologically, this study compares classical micro-XRF element mapping combined with point XANES analyses for spatially-resolved element speciation with high-resolution chemical imaging of entire sample areas, which is of great interest for the geochemical community in light of diffraction-limited storage ring upgrades to many synchrotron lightsources.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- This archive contains the results from calibration experiments with trend-like data. A simple EPA SWMM flood model was calibrated with different combinations of conventional water level data and trend-like water level data. Three different measurement locations in the model were possible: the pond (s3), the outlet shaft (s5), and the basement (s6). Trend-like data of different qualities were considered: error-free data (codename "trend"), data with correlated errors ("sofi") and data with uncorrelated errors ("gaussiantrend").1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- The download package of the Eawag AGS model. Content: 1. Eawag AGS Model files 2. User guide 3. Sumo project examples 4. Data extraction files 5. R tool 6. Python runner More information on the model can be found here: https://www.eawag.ch/en/department/eng/projects/abwasser/ags-aerobic-granular-slugde-model/1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Groundwater is a major drinking water resource, but its quality is threatened by a broad variety of anthropogenic micropollutants (MPs), originating from agriculture, industry, or households, and undergoing various transformation processes during subsurface passage. To determine a worst-case impact of pesticide application in agriculture on groundwater quality, a target and suspect screening for more than 300 pesticides and more than 1100 pesticide transformation products (TPs) was performed in 31 Swiss groundwater samples which predominantly originated from areas with intensive agriculture. To assess additional urban contamination sources, more than 250 common urban MPs were quantified. Most of the screened pesticide TPs were experimentally observed by the pesticide producers within the European pesticide registration. To cover very polar pesticide TPs, vacuum-assisted evaporative concentration was used for enrichment, followed by liquid chromatography high-resolution tandem mass spectrometry (LC-HRMS/MS). Based on intensity, isotope pattern, retention time, and in silico fragmentation, the suspect hits were prioritised and verified. We identified 22 suspects unequivocally and five tentatively; 13 TPs are reported here for the first time to be detected in groundwater. In 13 out of 31 groundwater samples, the total concentration of the 20 identified and quantified suspects (1 pesticide and 19 pesticide TPs) exceeded the total concentration of the 519 targets (236 pesticides and TPs; 283 urban MPs) for which we screened. Pesticide TPs had higher concentrations than the parent pesticides, illustrating their importance for groundwater quality. The newly identified very polar chlorothalonil TP R471811 was the only compound detected in all samples with concentrations ranging from 3 to 2700 ng/L. Agricultural MP concentration and detection frequency correlated with agricultural land use in the catchment, except for aquifers, where protective top layers reduced MP transport from the surface. In contrast to agricultural MPs, urban MPs displayed almost no correlation with land use. The dominating entry pathway of urban MPs was river bank filtration.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Genomic datasets continue to increase in number due to the ease of production for a wider selection of species including non-model organisms. For many of these species, especially those with large or polyploid genomes, highly contiguous and well-annotated genomes are still rare due to the complexity and cost involved in their assembly. As a result, a common starting point for genomic work in non-model species is the production of a linkage map. Dense linkage maps facilitate the analysis of genomic data in a variety of ways, from broad scale observations regarding genome structure e.g. chromosome number and type or sex-related structural differences, to fine scale patterns e.g. recombination rate variation and co-localization of differentiated regions. Here we present both sex-averaged and sex-specific linkage maps for Coregonus sp. "Albock", a member of the European whitefish lineage (C. lavaretus spp. complex), containing 5395 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) loci across 40 linkage groups to facilitate future investigation into the genomic basis of whitefish adaptation and speciation. The map was produced using restriction-site associated digestion (RAD) sequencing data from two wild-caught parents and 156 F1 offspring. We discuss the differences between our sex-averaged and sex-specific maps and identify genome-wide synteny between C. sp. "Albock" and Atlantic Salmon (Salmo salar), which have diverged following the salmonid-specific whole genome duplication. Our analysis confirms that many patterns of synteny observed between Atlantic Salmon and Oncorhynchus and Salvelinus species are also shared by members of the Coregoninae subfamily. We also show that regions known for their species-specific rediploidization history can pose challenges for synteny identification since these regions have diverged independently in each salmonid species following the salmonid-specific whole genome duplication. The European whitefish map provided here will enable future studies to understand the distribution of loci of interest, e.g. FST outliers, along the whitefish genome as well as assisting with the de novo assembly of a whitefish reference genome.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- This package provides material that can be openly published for the paper "Scalable Flood Level Trend Monitoring with Surveillance Cameras using a Deep Convolutional Neural Network". It consists in the code used to generate results and figures as well as the weights of the deep convolutional neural networks trained to segment water in the surveillance camera images.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Nitrous oxides (N2O) emissions contribute to climate change and stratospheric ozone depletion. Wastewater treatment is a significant source of N2O remissions but likely underestimated, as recent, long-term monitoring campaigns demonstrated. However, the available data are insufficient to representatively estimate countrywide emission given the duration of most monitoring campaigns. Here, we show that the emission estimates can be significantly improved using an advanced approach based on multiple continuous, long-term monitoring campaigns. In 14 full-scale wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), we found a strong variability for the yearly emission factors (0.1 to 8% of the incoming nitrogen load), which exhibited a high correlation with effluent nitrite compared to the inflow nitrogen load and also good correlation with nitrogen removal efficiencies. But, countrywide data on nitrite effluent concentrations is very limited and not available for emission estimation in many countries. We propose to calculate a countrywide emission factor based the weighted emission factors of three nutrient removal WWTP categories (carbon removal: 0.1-8%, nitrification only: 1.8%, and full nitrogen removal: 0.9%). However, emission factors of carbon removal WWTPs are still highly uncertain given the expected performance variability. The newly developed approach allows representative, country-specific estimations of the N2O emissions from WWTP. Applied to the case of Switzerland, the estimations result in an average EF of 0.9-3.6% and total emissions of 410 to 1690 tN2O/year, which corresponds to 0.3-1.4% of the total Emission in Switzerland. Our results demonstrate that a better data availability and an improved understanding of long-term monitoring campaigns is crucial to improve current emissions estimations. Year-round denitrification, limiting nitrite accumulation, and a stringent control of sludge age in carbon removing plants are key measures to mitigate N2O emissions from wastewater treatment.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- As compared to the Asian lowlands, environmental exposure to arsenic (As) in West Africa has received little attention. Recent studies have found geogenic As contamination of groundwater in many regions in Burkina Faso. As-contaminated groundwater is used for drinking and increasingly also for the irrigation of staple foods. This study assesses the extent to which irrigation and cooking of staple foods in Burkina Faso influence plant uptake and dietary consumption of As, respectively. Using a greenhouse experimental setup, we evaluated the transfer of As from irrigation water spiked with 0, 100, 500, and 1,000 μg/L As(V) to the organs and edible parts of seven commonly consumed vegetables (amaranth, carrot, green bean, lettuce, okra, spinach, and tomato). Next, we cooked the greenhouse-cultivated vegetables and externally purchased foods with As-free and As-spiked waters. The As content in all plant organs increased with increasing As in the irrigation water. With 500 μg/L, the concentrations of As in the edible parts (ordered from highest to lowest) were as follows: spinach (6.6 ± 0.5μg/g); lettuce (3.9 ± 0.1μg/g); carrot (3.5 ± <0.1μg/g); amaranth (2.2 ± <0.1μg/g); okra (0.9 ± <0.1μg/g); green bean (0.8 ± <0.1μg/g); and tomato (0.2 ± <0.1μg/g). The edible parts of leafy vegetables irrigated with As-spiked water had a higher average As content (4.9 ± 4.5μg/g) than root (2.9 ± 2.0μg/g) and fruit/pod vegetables (0.8 ± 1.1μg/g). Cooking with an excess volume of As-free water reduced the As content in the cooked vegetables by 39% on average, while cooking with As-contaminated water transferred As to the cooked food. The As content in steamed foods was 8 to 18 times lower than in boiled foods. Based on human health risk estimates, we recommend planting leafy vegetables in areas with low concentrations of As in irrigation water and we propose the maximum As concentrations of 100 μg/L for the cultivation of carrot, and 500 μg/L for green bean, spinach, lettuce, and amaranth. In As-contaminated areas, mitigation strategies include the cultivation of fruit vegetables such as tomato and okra and steaming the food instead of boiling.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- The project aim is to monitor some target lakes and detect the extent of ice, the duration of lake ice and in particular the ice-on/off dates, with focus on the integration of various input data and processing methods. Thereby, various approaches will be implemented, developed, compared and integrated. Firstly, low spatial resolution (250 - 1000 m) but high temporal resolution (1 day) satellite images from various sensors will be used. Several spectral bands will be used, both reflective and emissive (thermal). Secondly, and as a pilot project, the use of existing Webcams will be investigated for (a) validation of results from satellite data, and (b) independent estimation of lake ice, especially for small lakes that cannot be detected in the satellite images. Thirdly, in-situ measurements will be made in order to characterize the development of the temperature profiles before freezing and under the ice-cover until melting. Besides the validation of the results from other data, this data will be used to calibrate a one-dimensional turbulence model so that the criteria for freezing of different Swiss lakes can be derived as a function of meteorological and other conditions in late autumn and winter. It is expected that the developed methods and software can be used, possibly with some modifications, also for data acquired in the future. The project is a feasibility study, which should lead to a comparison and analysis of the above three techniques and recommendations to MeteoSwiss for further actions.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Description of 44 Lake Data Sets for Modeling Organic Substances using the MASAS-Software. The Software itself is not available anymore.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- # Abstract Heat recovery from wastewater is a robust and straightforward strategy to reduce water-related energy consumption. Its implementation, though, requires a careful assessment of its impacts across the entire wastewater system as adverse effects on the water and resource recovery facility and competition among heat recovery strategies may arise. A model-based assessment of heat recovery from wastewater therefore implies extending the modeling spatial scope, with the aim of enabling thermal-hydraulic simulations from the household tap along its entire flow path down to the wastewater resource recovery facility. With this aim in mind, we propose a new modeling framework interfacing thermal-hydraulic simulations of (i) households, (ii) private lateral connections, and (iii) the main public sewer network. Applying this framework to analyze the fate of wastewater heat budgets in a Swiss catchment, we find that heat losses in lateral connections are large and cannot be overlooked in any thermal-hydraulic analysis, due to the high-temperature, low-flow wastewater characteristics maximizing heat losses to the environment. Further, we find that implementing shower drain heat recovery devices in 50% of the catchment's households lower the wastewater temperature at the recovery facility significantly less – only 0.3 K – than centralized in-sewer heat recovery, due to a significant thermal damping effect induced by lateral connections and secondary sewer lines. In-building technologies are thus less likely to adversely affect biological wastewater treatment processes. The proposed open-source modeling framework can be applied to any other catchment. We thereby hope to enable more efficient heat recovery strategies, maximizing energy harvesting while minimising impacts on biological wastewater treatment.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- ## There is [a newer version](https://doi.org/10.25678/00050C) of this dataset. **There is [an older version](https://doi.org/10.25678/0002A0) of this dataset.** The “National Long-term Surveillance of Swiss Rivers” (NADUF) program was initiated in 1972 as a cooperative project between three institutes: + [Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN)](https://www.bafu.admin.ch/bafu/en/home.html) + [Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (EAWAG)](https://www.eawag.ch) + [Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL)](https://www.wsl.ch/en.html) (since 2003) The following institutes participated later: + [Amt für Umwelt und Energie des Kantons Basel-Stadt (AUE)](https://www.aue.bs.ch) + [Federal Institute of Metrology (METAS)](https://www.metas.ch/metas/en/home.html) With the NADUF program, the chemical-physical state of Swiss rivers as well as intermediate-term and long-term changes in concentration are observed. Furthermore, it provides data for scientific studies on biological, chemical and physical processes in river water. The NADUF network serves as a basic data and sampling facility to evaluate the effectiveness of water protection measures and for various scientific projects.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Anonymized data and R scripts needed to replicate the identification of subsystems in Swiss water governance described in the study "Bottom-up identification of subsystems in complex governance systems". Theories of policymaking often focus on subsystems within a larger, overarching governance system. However, subsystem identification is complicated by the complexity of governance systems, characterized by multiple, interrelated issues, multi‐level interactions, and a diverse set of organizations. This study suggests an empirical, bottom‐up methodology to identify subsystems. Subsystems are identified based on bundles of similar observed organizational activity. The study further suggests a set of three elementary criteria to classify individual subsystems. In order to prove the value of the methodology, subsystems are identified through cluster analysis, and subsequently classified in a study of Swiss water governance. Results suggest that Swiss water governance can be understood as a network of overlapping subsystems connected by boundary penetrating organizations, with high‐conflict and quiet politics subgroups. The study shows that a principled analysis of subsystems as the interconnected, constituent parts of complex governance systems offers insights into important contextual factors shaping outcomes. Such insights are prerequisite knowledge in order to understand and navigate complex systems for researchers and practitioners alike.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Micropollutants are ubiquitously found in natural surface waters and pose a potential risk to aquatic organisms. Stream biofilms, consisting of bacteria, algae and other microorganisms potentially contribute to bioremediating aquatic environments by biotransforming xenobiotic substances. When investigating the potential of stream biofilms to remove micropollutants from the water column, it is important to distinguish between different fate processes, such as biotransformation, passive sorption and active bioaccumulation. However, due to the complex nature of the biofilm community and its extracellular matrix, this task is often difficult. In this study, we combined biotransformation experiments involving natural stream biofilms collected up- and downstream of wastewater treatment plant outfalls with the QuEChERS extraction method to distinguish between the different fate processes. The QuEChERS extraction proved to be a suitable method for a broad range of micropollutants (> 80% of the investigated compounds). We found that 31 out of 63 compounds were biotransformed by the biofilms, with the majority being substitution-type biotransformations, and that downstream biofilms have an increased biotransformation potential towards specific wastewater-relevant micropollutants. Overall, using the experimental and analytical strategy developed, stream biofilms were demonstrated to have a broad inherent micropollutant biotransformation potential, and to thus contribute to bioremediation and improving ecosystem health.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Paired samples of the concentration of E. coli in handwashing water sources and on the hands of volunteers (before and after handwashing) from Harare, Zimbabwe.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- This dataset contains the code and output files (upload.zip) for the corresponding publication, as well as a copy of the MODFLOW model (MODFLOW.zip) and its Python interface (FloPy.zip) required to reproduce all results reported.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Analyzing groundwater mixing ratios is crucial for many groundwater management tasks such as assessing sources of groundwater recharge and flow paths. However, estimating groundwater mixing ratios is affected by various uncertainties, which are related to analytical and measurement errors of tracers, the selection of end-members and finding the most suitable set of tracers. Although these uncertainties are well recognized, it is still not common practice to account for them. We address this issue by using a new set of tracers in combination with a Bayesian modeling approach, which explicitly considers the possibility of unknown end-members while fully accounting for tracer uncertainties. We apply the Bayesian model we developed to a tracer set which includes helium-4 analyzed on-site to determine mixing ratios in groundwater. Thereby, we identify an unknown end-member, that contributes up to 84% to the water mixture observed at our study site. For the helium-4 analysis, we use a newly developed Gas Equilibrium Membrane Inlet Mass Spectrometer (GE-MIMS), operated in the field. To test the reliability of on-site helium-4 analysis, we compare results obtained with the GE-MIMS to the conventional lab-based method, which is comparatively expensive and labor intensive. Our work demonstrates that (i) tracer-aided Bayesian mixing modeling can detect unknown water sources, thereby revealing valuable insights into the conceptual understanding of the groundwater system studied and ii) on-site helium-4 analysis with the GE-MIMS system is an accurate and reliable alternative to the lab-based analysis.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- This study documents the development of a semi-distributed hydrological model aimed at reflecting the dominant controls on observed streamflow spatial variability. The process is presented through the case study of the Thur catchment (Switzerland, 1702 km2), an alpine and pre–alpine catchment where streamflow (measured at 10 subcatchments) has different spatial characteristics in terms of amounts, seasonal patterns, and dominance of baseflow. In order to appraise the dominant controls on streamflow spatial variability, and build a model that reflects them, we follow a two–stages approach. In a first stage, we identify the main climatic or landscape properties that control the spatial variability of streamflow signatures. This stage is based on correlation analysis, complemented by expert judgment to identify the most plausible cause-effect relationships. In a second stage, the results of the previous analysis are used to develop a set of model experiments aimed at determining an appropriate model representation of the Thur catchment. These experiments confirm that only a hydrological model that accounts for the heterogeneity of precipitation, snow related processes, and landscape features such as geology, produces hydrographs that have signatures similar to the observed ones. This model provides consistent results in space–time validation, which is promising for predictions in ungauged basins. The presented methodology for model building can be transferred to other case studies, since the data used in this work (meteorological variables, streamflow, morphology and geology maps) is available in numerous regions around the globe.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Groundwater recharge indicates the existence of renewable groundwater resources and is therefore an important component in sustainability studies. However, recharge is also one of the least understood, largely because it varies in space and time and is difficult to measure directly. For most studies, only a relatively small number of measurements is available, which hampers a comprehensive understanding of processes driving recharge and the validation of hydrogeological model formulations for small- and large-scale applications. We present a new global recharge dataset encompassing >5000 locations. In order to gain insights into recharge processes, we provide a systematic analysis between the dataset and other global-scale datasets, such as climatic or soil-related parameters. Precipitation rates and seasonality in temperature and precipitation were identified as the most important variables in predicting recharge. The high dependency of recharge on climate indicates its sensitivity to climate change. We also show that vegetation and soil structure have an explanatory power for recharge. Since these conditions can be highly variable, recharge estimates based only on climatic parameters may be misleading. The freely available dataset offers diverse possibilities to study recharge processes from a variety of perspectives. By noting the existing gaps in understanding, we hope to encourage the community to initiate new research into recharge processes and subsequently make recharge data available to improve recharge predictions.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- This data has been used to generate valid sanitation system options from a set of potential technologies and to quantify corresponding phosphorus, nitrogen, total solids, and water flows. The data contains input and output data for a didactic case. The input data is a csv file with the compiled information on the 41 technologies collected from literature on the technologies. This includes the technology appropriateness profiles and scores and in particular the transfer coefficients of the four substances in question. Results include: (1) technology appropriateness scores; (2) all valid sanitation system configurations; (3) the system appropriateness scores; (4) mass flows; and (5) a a smaller set of divers and highly appropriate sanitation system options as an input into decision-making.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- **Background.** The advent of the CRISPR/Cas9 technology marked the beginning of a new era in the field of molecular biology, allowing the efficient and precise creation of targeted mutations in the genome of every living cell. Since its discovery, different gene editing approaches based on the CRISPR/Cas9 technology have been widely established in mammalian cell lines, while limited knowledge is available on genetic manipulation in fish cell lines. In this work, we developed a strategy to CRISPR/Cas9 gene edit rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) cell lines and to generate single cell clone-derived knock-out cell lines, focusing on the phase I biotransformation enzyme encoding gene, *cyp1a1*, and on the intestinal cell line, RTgutGC, as example. **Results.** Ribonucleoprotein (RNP) complexes, consisting of the Cas9 protein and a fluorescently labeled crRNA/tracrRNA duplex targeting the cyp1a1 gene, were delivered via electroporation. A T7 endonuclease I (T7EI) assay was performed on flow cytometry enriched transfected cells in order to detect CRISPR-mediated targeted mutations in the *cyp1a1* locus, revealing an overall gene editing efficiency of 39%. Sanger sequencing coupled with bioinformatics analysis led to the detection of multiple insertions and deletions of variable lengths in the *cyp1a1* region directed by CRISPR/Cas9 machinery. Clonal isolation based on the use of cloning cylinders was applied, allowing to overcome the genetic heterogeneity created by the CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing. Using this method, two monoclonal CRISPR edited rainbow trout cell lines were established for the first time. Sequencing analysis of the mutant clones confirmed the disruption of the *cyp1a1* gene open reading frame through the insertion of 101 or 1 base pair, respectively. **Conclusions.** The designed RNP-based CRISPR/Cas9 approach, starting from overcoming limitations of transfection to achieving a clonal cell line, sets the stage for exploiting permanent gene editing in rainbow trout, and potentially other fish cells, for unprecedented exploration of gene function.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Untreated combined sewage (bypass) is often discharged by wastewater treatment plants to receiving rivers during stormwater events, where it may contribute to increased levels of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) and multi-resistance risk factors (multi-resistant bacteria and multi-resistance genomic determinants (MGDs)) in the receiving water. Other contamination sources, such as soil runoff and resuspended river sediment could also play a role during stormwater events. Here we report on stormwater event-based sampling campaigns to determine temporal dynamics of ARGs and multi-resistance risk factors in bypass, treated effluent, and the receiving river, as well as complimentary data on catchment soils and surface sediments. Both indicator ARGs (qPCR) and resistome (ARG profiles revealed by metagenomics) indicated bypass as the main contributor to the increased levels of ARGs in the river during stormwater events. Furthermore, we showed for the first time that the risk of exposure to bypass-borne multi-resistance risk factors increase under stormwater events and that many of these MGDs were plasmid associated and thus potentially mobile. In addition, elevated resistance risk factors persisted for some time (up to 22 hours) in the receiving water after stormwater events, likely due to inputs from distributed overflows in the catchment. This indicates temporal dynamics should be considered when interpreting the risks of exposure to resistance from event-based contamination. We propose that reducing bypass from wastewater treatment plants may be an important intervention option for reducing dissemination of antibiotic resistance.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Mooring with temperature and pressure loggers on lake Aegeri to observe ice growing and inverse stratification1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Nitrous oxide (N2O) is a strong greenhouse gas and causal for stratospheric ozone depletion. During biological nitrogen removal in wastewater treatment plants (WWTP), high N2O fluxes to the atmosphere can occur, typically exhibiting a seasonal emission pattern. Attempts to explain the peak emission phases in winter and spring using physico-chemical process data from WWTP were so far unsuccessful and new approaches are required. The complex and diverse microbial community of activated sludge used in biological treatment systems also exhibit substantial seasonal patterns. However, a potentially causal link between the seasonal patterns of microbial diversity and N2O emissions has not yet been investigated. Here we show that in a full-scale WWTP nitrification failure and N2O peak emissions, bad settleability of the activated sludge and a turbid effluent strongly correlate with a significant reduction in the microbial community diversity and shifts in community composition. During episodes of impaired performance, we observed a significant reduction in abundance for filamentous and nitrite oxidizing bacteria in all affected reactors. In some reactors that did not exhibit nitrification and settling failures, we observed a stable microbial community and no drastic loss of species. Standard engineering approaches to stabilize nitrification, such as increasing the aerobic sludge age and oxygen availability failed to improve the plant performance on this particular WWTP and replacing the activated sludge was the only measure applied by the operators to recover treatment performance in affected reactors. Our results demonstrate that disturbances of the sludge microbiome affect key structural and functional microbial groups, which lead to seasonal N2O emission patterns. To reduce N2O emissions from WWTP, it is therefore crucial to understand the drivers that lead to the microbial population dynamics in the activated sludge.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- The characteristics of fecal sludge delivered to treatment plants are highly variable. Adapting treatment process operations accordingly is challenging due to a lack of analytical capacity for characterization and monitoring at many treatment plants. Cost-efficient and simple field measurements such as photographs and probe readings could be proxies for process control parameters that normally require laboratory analysis. To investigate this, we evaluated questionnaire data, expert assessments, and simple analytical measurements for fecal sludge collected from 421 onsite containments. This data served as inputs to models of varying complexity. Random forest and linear regression models were able to predict physical-chemical characteristics including total solids (TS) and ammonium (NH4+-N) concentrations, and solid-liquid separation performance including settling efficiency and filtration time (R2 from 0.51-0.66) based on image analysis of photographs (sludge color, supernatant color, and texture) and probe readings (conductivity (EC) and pH). Supernatant color was the best predictor of settling efficiency and filtration time, EC was the best predictor of NH4+-N, and texture was the best predictor of TS. Predictive models have the potential to be applied for real-time monitoring and process control if a database of measurements is developed and models are validated in other cities. Simple decision tree models based on the single classifier of containment type can also be used to make predictions about citywide planning, where a lower degree of accuracy is required.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- **Objective** Standardized face-to-face interviews are widely used to collect data in low and middle-income countries for social science and health research. Such interviews can be long and tedious. In an attempt to improve the respondents’ experience during interviews, we developed a concept of gamified interview by including a game element. Gamification is reported to increase engagement in tasks, but results from rigorously developed research are equivocal, and a theory of gamification is still needed. **Materials & methods** We conducted a randomized controlled trial to rigorously evaluate the proposed gamification based on the self-determination theory, specifically on the basic psychological needs theory. In total, 1266 respondents were interviewed. Single and multiple mediation analyses were used to understand how gamification works. **Results** Our evaluation showed that the gamification we had developed did not improve the outcome, i.e. the reported experience of the interview. The effect of gamification depended on the ability of respondents: gamification can be counterproductive if it overburdens the respondents. Finally, the basic psychological needs theory explained the mechanisms of action of gamification well: feeling competent and related to others improved the reported experience of the interview. **Conclusion** We emphasize the need to develop context-specific gamification and invite researchers to follow equivalently rigorous evaluation of gamification in future studies.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- Standard Operation Precedures for the culture of the gill cell line from rainbow trout (RTgill-W1) and the performance of a cell viability assay based on the RTgill-W1 cells along with a data evaluation excel-template.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- R code for mixed rate control model and first-order model with experimental data set for calibration Experiment I and II.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- This data has been used (1) to quantify the appropriateness of a set of sanitation technologies for a small town (Katarnyia) in Nepal and (2) to generate sanitation system options from the appropriate technologies as an input into strategic sanitation planning using a structured decision making process. For (1), the appropriateness is quantified based on a set of criteria, also called screening criteria. These criteria include technical, socio-demographic, climatic, and institutional aspects and are quantified using uncertainty functions in order to account for the quality and quantity of available input information. The data contains raw data as well as modelling results. The raw data is a compilation of information collected from literature, information collected through a household survey in the small town, field observations. They are all used to describe the screening criteria for the studied sanitation technologies and the small town. Results include: (1) the outcome of the technology appropriateness assessment (technology appropriateness scores); and (2) the sanitation system options (all possible sanitation systems built from the appropriate technologies, and a smaller set of divers and highly appropriate sanitation system options as an input into decision-making).1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- This data has been used to quantify phosphorus, nitrogen, total solids, and water flows in 101'548 sanitation systems generated from 41 potential technologies appropriate for a small town (Katarnyia) in Nepal. The data contains input and output data for a didactic case as well as the full application to Katarniya. The input data is a csv file with the compiled information on the 41 technologies collected from literature on the technologies. This includes the technology appropriateness profiles and scores and in particular the transfer coefficients of the four substances in question. Results include: (1) all valid sanitation system configurations; (2) a a smaller set of divers and highly appropriate sanitation system options as an input into decision-making; (3) substance flows for phosphorus, nitrogen, total solids, and water and recovery and loss potential.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- SUMO model for Biofilm Modelling chapter in IWA Biological Wastewater Treatment: 2nd edition.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
- This package contains images and videos of active hydraulic shortcuts in agricultural areas of the municipalities of Zürich and Rümlang, Switzerland. More information on hydraulic shortcuts and their relevance for pesticide transport in agricultural areas are provided in the following doctoral thesis: https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000539927 The pictures and videos in this package are intended to be used for outreach or training of farmers, etc. and can be used freely (creative commons license). The pictures and videos were taken on 13 July 2021 between 17:23h and 17:55h (UTC+2h), a few hours after a large two-day rain event. The precipitation measured at a nearby rain gage (station Affoltern, MeteoSchweiz; 47.427694, 8.517953) equalled 41.5mm on the 12th of July, and 34.7mm on the 13th of July. The images and videos were taken at six different locations. The situations that are visible on these images and videos are described in the following. For each location, latitude and longitude is indicated in brackets (WGS84 coordinate system). - **Location 1** (47.42726, 8.52567): Surface runoff on a farm track. Since the farm track is elevated in the middle, water flows at the left and right edge of the farm track. Only at one specific location surface runoff changes from the left to the right side. - **Location 2** (47.43118, 8.52572): Surface runoff flows along one edge of a farm track. - **Location 3** (47.43580, 8.52877): Surface runoff accumulates on a potato field, flows on a asphalt road, and then into an inlet of the road storm drainage system. - **Location 4** (47.44077, 8.52534): Surface runoff flows from a corn field on an asphalt road, and then into an inlet of the road storm drainage system. - **Location 5** (47.43819, 8.50848): Surface runoff accumulates on a field with bare soil, causing erosion. At the field border with the lowest elevation, surface runoff flows onto a small asphalt road and then for around 180m along this road. Finally, the surface runoff flows into an inlet of the road storm drainage system of a larger asphalt road. - **Location 6** (47.43837, 8.50621): Surface runoff formed on grassland flows into an inlet of the storm road drainage system. This occurs either directly, or via the road.1Licence not specifiedover 2 years ago
Title
Updated