Nutrients, Water Quality and Eutrophication
We undertake fundamental and applied research in water quality science and aquatic biogeochemistry to address the accelerating challenges of water-quality impairment that undermine the ecological health of water bodies, from watershed-to-global scales.
Watersheds, water resources and water quality, that sustain environmental and human health, are under intense and growing pressure globally from agricultural intensification, urbanization and climate change.
Our major research focus is nutrients (phosphorus and nitrogen) from agriculture and wastewater, which are a global cause of water-quality impairment. Phosphorus and nitrogen are applied as fertilizers to agricultural land to ensure healthy crops and high yields. All plants and animals need nutrients to grow and thrive; but, like many things in life, too much of a good thing can be a problem! Excess phosphorus and nitrogen entering our rivers, lakes and coastal waters can stimulate excessive growth of nuisance and sometimes harmful algae, impairing water quality and ecology – a process known as ‘eutrophication’.
Credit: Julie DePauw
Our research provides new data and evidence to help prioritize efforts to reduce nutrient loadings to water bodies, and for watershed planning, in support of healthy aquatic ecosystems.
In the Field and Lab
We undertake fieldwork to collect runoff, stream, river and lake water samples, and laboratory experiments to understand the biogeochemical processes controlling nutrient cycling and transport along the land-river-lake continuum.
Credit: Janina Plach
We measure a wide range of water chemistry analytes, using state-of-the-art instruments in our Biogeochemistry Laboratory.
Credit: Janina Plach
And we apply data analysis and modelling techniques to trace, quantify and apportion nutrient contributions from different watershed sources, and track their effects on water quality, nutrient fluxes and aquatic ecosystem health. Our field and laboratory research is also providing new understanding about functional resilience to environmental change: how instream biogeochemical processes can help confer resistance and resilience to climate and hydrological perturbations and the converging stressors arising from agricultural intensification and urbanization.
Water Quality research from Watershed to Global scales
Our research is international in scope, and we work closely with research partners across Europe, the U.S.A and Asia.
An important focus of our current water-quality research is within the Canada’s Great Lakes and Prairie regions. We have established the Grand River Land-to-Lake (GRiLL) initiative: a research and learning platform to quantify the sources and biogeochemical processes governing nutrient delivery, and the drivers of eutrophication, in Canada’s largest Lake Erie watershed.
We undertake fieldwork, measure water chemistry and work in collaboration with stakeholders across the Grand River Watershed. The GRiLL initiative is delivering new scientific evidence to better understand the water quality and ecological functioning of the Grand River, and the fluxes of nutrients to Lake Erie, to assist with integrated watershed planning and decision-making towards sustainability.
