Apping and assessing air pollution using lichens!

CEH released a new mobile phone app today. It gives everyone a way of assessing nitrogen pollution in their local area.

For those that don’t know lichens look like this!

The app is based on a field guide developed by CEH staff and our partners last year

Unlike most of our previous apps, such as iRecord Butterflies and iRecord Ladybirds, the Lichen app isn’t for wildlife recording, rather it’s a tool for assessing the status of nitrogen in your area by surveying lichen on trees. By identifying the presence or absence of nine nitrogen sensitive and eight non-sensitive lichens on tree trunks and branches you can get an estimate of how polluted your area is.

Lichens on a tree trunk – © Ian Leith/Centre for Ecology & Hydrology

Full guidance can be found in the app but basically to get going you need to Identify five oak or five birch trees (not a mixture of the two) in your local area.

• Trees should be single stemmed (standard) with a straight trunk, and greater than 40 cm in girth. 
• There also needs to be some accessible branches.

Following the instructions in the app you then identify the lichens growing on the East, West, South of the tree trunks, and then some of the tree branches. You might need to use a hand lens to help with ID as some lichen features are very small!

Here's where you need to sample lichens on your trees.

All the details are then recorded using the App:

And if you have any problems identifying your lichens there’s a handy ID guide built into the App with lots of photos:

Once all the info is complete, you click on the ‘Results’ button. The app works out your lichen indicator score (LIS) and the NAQI score (Nitrogen Air Quality Index).

That’s it! More information on the Lichen App can be found in a news story on our website.

Related links

New app to monitor air quality using lichens - CEH news

Download the Lichen App

Lichen field manual

Flu study offers unique insight into our drug habits during a pandemic

New research led by CEH’s Dr Andrew Singer provides the first evidence of how the use of antibiotic and antiviral drugs became elevated during the 2009-2010 influenza pandemic in the UK. The study, published in PLOS One, offers a unique look at public health practice, human behaviour and drug adherence in the country.

Andrew’s study, carried out at 21 locations within the river Thames catchment, was the first to provide actual measurements of antibiotics, antivirals and decongestants in sewage effluent and receiving rivers during an influenza pandemic, an event only likely to happen every 30 years or so. The aim was to quantify the pharmaceutical response to the pandemic and compare this to drug use during the late pandemic and the inter-pandemic periods. The findings helped to quantify the risk to wastewater treatment plants, as they will be sensitive to the amount of antimicrobials in sewage and could potentially fail to meet water quality standards during high drug use events such as an influenza pandemic.

Dr Andrew Singer at work in one of CEH's laboratories.

The study also provides evidence that environmental concentrations of the antiviral Tamiflu would be sufficiently high to select for antiviral-resistance in influenza viruses within wildfowl inhabiting the river Thames. Future research will need to focus on the minimum concentration of antibiotics needed to ‘knock out’ a wastewater treatment plant, and whether this concentration could be achieved during a more severe pandemic. It remains an open question as to the extent to which exposure to high concentrations of Tamiflu have actually selected for antiviral resistance in wildfowl—as this has been shown to occur in laboratory studies. Lastly, it also remains unclear as to the lasting impact of an increase in antibiotic use during a severe influenza pandemic on the environmental reservoir of antibiotic resistance and its relevance to human health. Will we need to limit antibiotic use during a pandemic in order to spare our wastewater treatment plants as well as the long term efficacy of antibiotics?

Read more about the background to the study in an article on Andrew’s blog and read the freely available study in PLOS One.

Additional information

Staff page of Dr Andrew Singer, CEH

Andrew led a previous study estimating how much prescribed Tamiflu went unused during the 2009-2010 pandemic. More details in a CEH news story.

CEH scientists collaborating with global freshwater citizen science programme

CEH scientists working on a project investigating water pollution in urban areas have teamed up with Earthwatch to train citizen scientists in carrying out water quality monitoring. The collaboration has come about via Earthwatch’s Freshwater Watch programme, which aims to study fresh water quality around the globe by engaging employees from participating organisations as citizen scientists.

The POLLCURB project, led by CEH, is looking at how water pollution relates to change in urban areas, in particular change brought about by population growth, and what it may mean for water quality and quantity in the future.

POLLCURB is collaborating with the Earthwatch programme by training citizen scientists, in this case employees from Shell, to monitor water quality in the river Thames and two of its tributaries, the Mole and Ember, using a handheld multiparameter probe.

CEH's Mike Hutchins (centre) teaching participants
how to use the probe. Photo: Richard Sylvester / Earthwatch.

Dr Mike Hutchins of the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology is lead investigator on POLLCURB. At a recent citizen science training day at Wimbledon Common, Mike gave an overview of the project before teaching the budding citizen scientists from Shell how to use the monitoring probe, taking them into the field to gain first-hand practice.

Probe dunking. Photo: Richard Sylvester / Earthwatch.

The participants will visit the Thames sites several times over the next six months to collect data on temperature, turbidity, organic matter, algae and oxygen levels, producing a monthly dataset for each location. As well as collecting data for POLLCURB, they are also carrying out Freshwater Watch’s global parameters at each of the sites, which include collection data on nutrient levels.

Looking at the data collected. Photo: Richard Sylvester / Earthwatch.

Mike told us a little more about the value of the collaboration. He explained, "As POLLCURB is investigating how urban growth influences local water bodies I am keen to get people living in those very towns and cities involved and, in particular, for them to have the opportunity to use some of the equipment that professional scientists are currently using on a day-to-day basis.

"The data the citizen scientists are collecting will benefit me, in terms of improving the models I am using to predict river water quality, and also regulators, who will gain further knowledge of some specific rivers of interest to them."

Looking at results. Photo: Richard Sylvester / Earthwatch

Mike added, "The project with Earthwatch / Shell is flexible and I hope will gain some of its own momentum. There is potential to expand the number of sites or increase the frequency of visits, and also I am particularly enthusiastic about the scope for participants to monitor other local water bodies in which they may have a particular personal interest."

Earthwatch and CEH collaborators at one of the monitoring sites on the
Thames near Hampton Court. Photo: Mike Hutchins / CEH.

For more detailed information on the POLLCURB project, visit the project website.

Additional information

FreshWater Water has already recruited more than 1700 citizen scientists in over two dozen cities around the world. Data collected are uploaded to freshwaterwatch.thewaterhub.org

Staff page and research interests of Dr Mike Hutchins, CEH

More about the citizen science training day from Earthwatch

Posted by Paulette Burns, Media Coordinator

Pollution & Environmental Risk science area at CEH

CEH's new Science Strategy identifies three interdependent, major societal and environmental challenges: Securing the Value of Nature, Building Resilience to Environmental Hazards, and Managing Environmental Change. We're delivering our strategy by Science Areas and underpinning activities, and over the next few weeks we are profiling these on our blog.

This post focuses on our Pollution & Environmental Risk Science Area led by Professor Richard Shore. Through this area, CEH will provide scientific evidence and risk assessment for sustainable management of chemicals while protecting people and the environment.

Chemicals include pharmaceuticals, radionuclides, macronutrients, trace elements and organic and inorganic pollutants. The development, manufacture and use of chemicals contributes billions of pounds to the UK economy per annum, yet they can have hazardous properties that pose risks to human health, food production and the environment.

Solardomes at CEH's Bangor research site: state-of-the-art exposure
facilities to study the impacts of ozone on a range of plant species.

CEH research objectives include short and long-term monitoring to quantify concentrations, pools, fluxes and impacts of key environmental pollutants.

‘Down the drain’ chemicals – how exposed are the world’s rivers? New blog post http://t.co/L7AzB4hD3i #pollution #environment
— CEH Science News (@CEHScienceNews) February 6, 2014

We study pollutant transport, fate, exposure, effects to discover or predict impact on organisms, human health, ecosystems and their services. We aim to reduce uncertainty with which we predict environmental dynamics, bioavailability and impacts of environmental pollutants, improve hazard screening and risk assessment processes for current and emerging technologies and provide training, tools and approaches for the more realistic assessment of environmental exposure concentrations and risks from manufactured nanomaterials.

@CEHScienceNews Claus Svendson #NanoFATEproject @unibirmingham overseeing @QualityNano training school on dosing nanoparticles into soil.
— Iseult Lynch (@iseult5) March 7, 2014

CORDIS spotlight on nanoparticles' imperceptible effects http://t.co/ehmhD1FCD0 related to project work carried out at CEH
— CEH Science News (@CEHScienceNews) October 4, 2013

CEH runs the Predatory Bird Monitoring Scheme, a long-term, national monitoring scheme that quantifies the concentrations of contaminants in the livers and eggs of selected species of predatory and fish-eating birds in Britain. We monitor the levels of contaminants to determine how and why they vary between species and regions, how they are changing over time, and the effects that they may have on individual birds and on their populations.

Here's our co-paper showing elevated PBDE + PCBs in urban v rural dippers http://t.co/oKuYk3gEZL @CEHScienceNews pic.twitter.com/A9VUXDP1Le
— Steve Ormerod (@SteveOrmerod) July 22, 2013

Sparrowhawk study suggests why PBDE contaminant levels vary - http://t.co/10mTl3x7qq in Science for Env Policy @SfEP
— CEH Science News (@CEHScienceNews) July 5, 2013

The Predatory Bird Monitoring Scheme is also a part of the WILDCOMS collaborative network, formed between the various UK surveillance schemes that monitor disease and contaminants in vertebrate wildlife.

WILDCOMS UK surveillance schemes network monitoring disease & contaminants in vertebrate wildlife: Annual Report http://t.co/XxtREEYfIJ
— CEH Science News (@CEHScienceNews) January 28, 2014

CEH also has a well-established international reputation in radioecology research, the study of the behaviour of radioactive elements in the environment and measuring exposure to radiation of humans and other organisms.

Temporary storage site for radioactive waste at Kawauchi, Japan. In October 2013 Dr Brenda Howard
of CEH was part of an International Atomic Energy Agency international expert mission to
review remediation efforts in areas affected by the Fukushima Daiichi accident.

Read more about our Pollution & Environmental Risk Science Area, including a Science Area Summary [PDF], on the CEH website.

Additional information

CEH Science Strategy 2014-2019

Staff page of Professor Richard Shore, Pollution & Environmental Risk Science Area Lead

How exposed are the world’s rivers to pollutant chemicals discharged from domestic sources?

CEH scientists Andrew Johnson, Virginie Keller and Richard Williams blog about their new paper examining pollution in the world’s rivers.

All around the world we use more and more chemicals in toothpaste, drugs, shampoo, hormones for cancer treatment and as a means of contraception. All these chemicals go "down-the-drain" and a proportion escape from sewage treatment plants before entering rivers and potentially affecting wildlife. A good example is the issue of sex hormones discharged by the human population resulting in male fish displaying female characteristics (e.g. egg proteins in their blood, egg sites in their testes), which caused alarm around the world.

One way of finding out the scale of national exposure to such chemicals is to get chemists to test for every chemical in every river in their country. Such monitoring campaigns are extremely challenging and very costly to carry out. Even in countries such as the UK, which has a small geographical area and leads the world in environmental monitoring, the level of effort required is difficult to sustain. For developing nations the expense of such monitoring campaigns means such information and knowledge is beyond reach.

Our new study, recently published as an open access paper in the journal Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, used a geographic-based model which compares population with river flow to assess the available natural dilution for the human wastes that contain chemicals. The less dilution available within a nation, the higher the exposure levels to these chemicals will be.

As we all know rainfall patterns can vary dramatically throughout the year, and from year to year. The model used long-term annual and monthly averages of river flow (based on up to 60 years of measured rainfall) to generate a range of dilution factors.

Many nations have poorly populated and densely populated regions. Thus, for each nation, a variety of dilution factors were examined (expressed as a range of percentiles). The spatial variability of the dilution factors can vary considerably depending on the percentiles – defining low to high flows – and types of flow considered (annual or monthly).

Predicted values of national annual median (50%ile) dilution factor

The results are interesting. In Europe, the UK median dilution factor of 37 puts it in the upper third of nations exposed to domestic chemicals. However, the 25%ile results – a measure of low flow dilution – give the UK a dilution factor of only 6, making it the most exposed country. This is a consequence of our relatively dry summers and high population densities in the South and Midlands. By way of contrast the French median dilution factor is 76 and 25%ile dilution factor is 47. This tells us that French fish have a lot less to worry about than British fish!

The paper is open access so readers can look up their exposure to chemicals by examining the tables we’ve created. We hope that environmentalists and regulators from countries across the world, as well as the general public, are able to use the results, to better address this important issue.

Andrew Johnson, Virginie Keller and Richard Williams

Additional information

The full paper reference is:

Keller V.D.J., Williams, R.J., Lofthouse, C., Johnson, A.C. (2014). Worldwide estimation of river concentrations of any chemical originating from sewage-treatment plants using dilution factors.
Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, 33, 447-452. doi: 10.1002/etc.2441

Staff page of Professor Andrew Johnson

Staff page of Richard Williams

CEH research shows ammonia emissions affect sensitive habitats upwind of a poultry farm

CEH recently led a study that found that ammonia emissions from an intensive poultry unit were detected nearly three kilometres upwind, deep within a Natura 2000 site, Newborough Warren, an important sand dune system in Wales. The research was highlighted by the European news alert service Science for Environment Policy, as well as industry website The Poultry Site.

The paper by Dr Laurence Jones describes the findings, which have major implications for the way we consider the control of emissions from intensive animal production units.

Laurence continues:

“While the majority of ammonia is transported downwind, this study suggests that ammonia emissions could be a significant source of nitrogen pollution to sensitive sites even upwind from the source.

Mobile sand dunes, a highly biodiverse habitat

Ammonia caused exceedance of UNECE nitrogen thresholds within the nearby Natura site and experiments showed that dune plant species were being affected by the nitrogen. The paper has already convinced the Environment Agency to consider effects of local wind direction and more recent meteorological data in casework.

Ammonia emissions were monitored around the farm and up to 2.8 km upwind of the prevailing wind direction for a year.

At the furthest sampling point upwind, levels of ammonia concentrations rose and fell in cycles coinciding with emissions from the farm in all months, although were much lower (averaging 0.9 μg/m³, compared with 60.1 μg/m,³ at the farm itself).

The Natura site, Newborough Warren, is one of Wales’ largest sand dune systems and is designated for a wide range of Biodiversity Action Plan priority habitats and rare species. Within parts of the site, ammonia from the farm caused exceedance of the critical level for ammonia of 1 μg/m³, and exceedance of the critical load of 8 – 15 kg N/ha/yr for sand dune grasslands. The farm contributed an additional 50% to the background levels of nitrogen deposition in parts of the site.

Common Centaury, Centaurium erythraea, a low growing biennial
often found on sand dunes

Experiments in the study showed that plants take up the ammonia as a nutrient source, and nitrogen-loving grasses and other species grew better when exposed to the ammonia than other dune species.

The study was funded by Countryside Council for Wales (now Natural Resources Wales). It confirms other CEH studies which highlight that sand dune habitats are sensitive to excess nitrogen pollution from atmospheric deposition and in groundwater.”

Laurence Jones

Additional information

Paper reference: Jones, L., Nizam, M.S., Reynolds, B. et al. (2013). Upwind impacts of ammonia from an intensive poultry unit. Environmental Pollution. 180: 221-228. DOI: 10.1016/j.envpol.2013.05.012

Related CEH links

Staff page of Dr Laurence Jones 

New paper - The role of short-lived climate pollutants in meeting temperature goals

Dr Chris Huntingford, a climate modeller at CEH, is a co-author on a new paper in Nature Climate Change which examines whether immediately reducing emissions of methane, black carbon and other short-lived climate pollutants will contribute substantially towards the goal of limiting global warming to 2 °C above pre-industrial levels.

Chris writes: “There is tremendous interest at the moment in how emissions in non-CO2 gases can be reduced as a contribution towards constraining global warming. Peak levels of warming remain of particular concern, including whether we will remain below the often discussed threshold of two-degrees. Whilst any action on greenhouse gas emissions is of interest, what this paper finds is as follows. Reduction of short-lived gases as a mechanism to reduce peaks levels of global warming is most effective when CO2 emissions themselves are reducing significantly. Lowering methane emissions for instance (which has an atmospheric lifetime of around just 12 years) a long time before CO2-reductions are implemented is unnecessary - waiting until a time when CO2 emissions are also reducing will have the same effect on peak warming.

The argument implicit in this paper is that over the next few decades, in terms of reducing peak warming, the emphasis really should remain on tackling the longer-lived gases, and predominantly carbon dioxide, which by definition have a more cumulative effect on climate. Reductions in short-lived gases will be extremely useful too in restricting maximum warming, but working out how to reduce them can maybe wait temporarily, leaving mitigation policy to focus on carbon dioxide.”

You can read the paper on the Nature Climate Change website here.

Hedgerows and hydrology - CEH paperblog 5

Our latest paperblog highlights some of the recently published scientific papers led by or involving researchers from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology.

• A new study in Global Change Biology describes results from a nine-year N perturbation, manipulation experiment carried out by CEH scientists on an ombrotrophic bog, Whim (a site in the Scottish Borders). Ammonium and nitrate were provided in rainwater spray in differing amounts, plus a rainwater only control, via an automated system coupled to site meteorology. The work was led by Dr Lucy Sheppard.

• A study recently published in Biological Conservation examined changes over 70 years in hedgerow floral diversity, including the impacts of management. The paper, led by CEH's Jo Staley with colleagues James  Bullock, John Redhead, Danny Hooftman and Richard Pywell, used a unique botanical dataset for 357 hedge sites across a study area of 2600 km² in Dorset, collected in the 1930s and again in 2001. 

• Professor Helen Jarvie of CEH, working with other CEH scientists and scientists based in the US, has written a new paper examining water quality remediation and the challenges it faces from "legacy phosphorus". The paper is published in Environmental Science & Technology.

• Three CEH hydrologists led by Dr Alison Kay have undertaken a study of uncertainty and sensitivity issues around estimating changes in 20-year return period flood peaks in Britain. The research is published in the journal Hydrological Processes.

• Professor Mike Acreman of CEH and Profesor Joe Holden from the University of Leeds have published a new article on "How Wetlands Affect Floods". It was published in Wetlands, the official scholarly journal of the Society of Wetland Scientists, in mid-August. They focused on two example wetland types (upland rain-fed wetlands and floodplain wetlands) to demonstrate why there are differences in flood functions both within and between wetland types.

Open access publishing is increasingly becoming the 'norm' in scientific publishing in the UK. To end this month's paperblog, we highlight three papers, all open access, which involve CEH scientists.

• First, Dr Bethan Purse of CEH co-authored a review of "Culicoides biting midges, arboviruses and public health in Europe" published in Antiviral Research, led by Simon Carpenter from the Pirbright Institute.

• Second, three CEH scientists have collaborated on a paper examining upland streamwater nitrate dynamics in CEH's long-term field sites at Plynlimon in Wales. The manuscript, describing work led by the University of Reading, is currently under discussion in Biogeosciences Discussions (until 3 October 2013). All data reported in the paper are freely accessible via the CEH Information Gateway.

• Finally, and also under discussion until 3 October 2013, Mike Bowes of CEH, working with colleagues at Newcastle University, is co-author of a new paper in Hydrology and Earth System Sciences looking at nutrient pollution modelling and monitoring. The example used is the river Frome catchment in Dorset, an area which CEH scientists know well, having carried out many years of research there.

Barnaby Smith - Media Relations Manager

Additional information

If you'd like a fuller picture of new papers from CEH, just follow the CEH Paper Alerts Twitter feed, which lists CEH peer-reviewed papers newly published online. Full details of Centre for Ecology & Hydrology science publications, including those published in peer-reviewed science journals, are eventually catalogued on the NERC Open Research Archive (NORA).

Those of you who follow the scientific literature will know some journal websites require registration and some are subscription-only. CEH, as part of NERC, is working with publishers and funders to make more of our output open access, and we have indicated above where this is the case.

We also publish lots of our other outputs including biological records atlases and project reports. More details can be found in the publications section of the CEH website.

Monitoring mercury in the atmosphere

Edinburgh is the venue for the International Conference on Mercury as a Global Pollutant later this month (28 Jul - 2 Aug 2013), and CEH's John Kentisbeer will be among the scientists presenting at the event. Here John tells us a bit more about mercury and also why and how CEH monitors its presence in the atmosphere.

Why does the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology monitor mercury in the atmosphere? Put simply, because it is a poisonous pollutant that needs to be better understood and controlled.

Mercury is a special metal because it is a liquid at ambient temperature and pressure, leading to its nickname of quicksilver. This liquid mercury easily turns to vapour and can exist in the atmosphere for up to a year. It can enter the atmosphere through natural processes, such as volcanic eruptions, but humans add to this by making chemicals, burning coal, disposing of mercury-containing waste, as well as gold mining and many other processes. Have you ever heard of the phrase "Mad as a hatter"? It comes from using mercury in the manufacturing of felt hats in the 19th century. Nowadays, mercury is used in all manner of fluorescent light bulbs and you may even have some in your mouth if you have a filling!

Mapping mercury concentrations in air over Europe

Of course there has always been mercury in the atmosphere, but not as much as there is now. Gold rushes since the 16th century and processes linked to the industrial revolution are among ways that humans dramatically increased the amount of mercury in the atmosphere, leading to a peak in the 1980s before control measures were introduced, curbing emissions and allowing levels in the atmosphere to fall. They have been pretty constant since the mid-1990s.

The reason we should all care about mercury in the atmosphere is that it is one part of the global mercury cycle. It doesn't just stay in the atmosphere; it can be deposited to land and water directly, and in rain. This allows it to accumulate in the environment where it can have a detrimental effect by being transformed into a more reactive form, such as methylmercury. Methylmercury is highly toxic and is easily absorbed in the bodies of animals and humans. If methylmercury enters a lake, it will be absorbed by small fish through their diet, and when the small fish are eaten by bigger fish the methylmercury moves to the bigger fish; this carries on right up the food web, until you get to humans, a process called bioaccumulation. This can result in significant mercury exposure in humans and lead to Minimata disease, which can cause serious neurological damage, insanity, paralysis and, in extreme cases, death. It affects animals too - in one outbreak in Japan it was called "dancing cat fever" because of the effects on cats. For this reason, many countries advise their citizens how much of certain fish, such as tuna, they should eat.

UK monitoring

CEH monitors mercury at eleven sites across the UK to assess the rural background levels. We monitor both the mercury in the atmosphere, as well as mercury in rainfall. Mercury can be present in the atmosphere in three forms: it can be a gas, it can be part of a molecule or it can be stuck to particles. Mercury gas can be present in the atmosphere for up to a year, while mercury as a compound or stuck to a particle has a much shorter lifetime and is easily removed by rain. Gaseous mercury can be changed in the atmosphere to the other two types, but this is generally thought to be quite a slow process. Our monitoring, undertaken on behalf of the UK governments, forms part of a European and global programme for monitoring mercury in the atmosphere to help understand local, regional and global trends.

CEH's atmospheric monitoring site at Auchencorth Moss in Scotland

In order to work out how much mercury is in the air, we have to capture it, which we do using gold. We pass air across a gold surface, to which the mercury sticks as it forms an amalgam. Once we have finished sampling a known volume of air, we heat the gold up and the mercury is released from the surface and is sent to the analyser, which uses ultraviolet light to calculate the mass of mercury in the sample. We can then work out the original concentration in air.

Typically background concentrations of gaseous mercury in the northern hemisphere are about 1.4 - 1.7 nanograms per cubic metre of air. That is 0.0000000014 grams, which seems really small, but these small amounts can accumulate to cause potentially harmful effects. We monitor mercury in air every five minutes at two sites, one at Auchencorth Moss in Midlothian, Scotland and the other at Harwell in Oxfordshire, England. At the other sites, we have low volume samplers which sample Total Gaseous Mercury (TGM), comprising gaseous elemental mercury and mercury-containing compounds, for two-week periods.

A low-volume Total Gaseous Mercury sampler

Our data show that average concentrations of mercury in the south-east of the UK are higher than in the north-west. This would be consistent with the urbanisation of the UK, but also with air containing mercury coming from the European mainland. Using the five-minute data and local wind speed and direction, we can even start to pinpoint possible local emission sources, such as coal-fired power stations or crematoria.

By understanding the sources and their influence on atmospheric mercury, we provide evidence to policy makers to help them make informed decisions on the problems we face. When control measures designed to reduce emissions are introduced, we can then monitor the impact and their effectiveness.

CEH also measures mercury content in soils as part of the UK Countryside Survey, which allows us to better understand how mercury enters and leaves soils, and its impact on the soil environment. Additionally, CEH scientists at Bangor also coordinate the ICP Vegetation programme (the International Cooperative Programme on Effects of Air Pollution on Natural Vegetation and Crops) which surveys the concentration of heavy metals, including mercury, in mosses across Europe.

We also operate the Predatory Bird Monitoring Scheme, which examines the concentrations of pollutants in certain dead birds as a way of identifying risks to wildlife and potentially humans. Mercury is one of the chemicals monitored as part of this programme as it is thought to be a contributing factor to the decline of some bird species.

• Find out more about CEH's various monitoring activities with the links below. And if you are in the Edinburgh area, the International Conference on Mercury also has a public open day. Come along to the Lomond Suite, Edinburgh International Conference Centre, 150 Morrison Street, on Sunday 28 July between 2pm-4.30pm.

John Kentisbeer

Additional information

UK Pollutant Deposition: Heavy Metal Monitoring

UK Countryside Survey

Predatory Bird Monitoring Scheme

ICP Vegetation

2013 International Conference on Mercury as a Global Pollutant website 

Staff page of John Kentisbeer at CEH

International Day of Biodiversity - Water & Biodiversity

Today is the International Day of Biological Diversity and this year's theme is Water & Biodiversity. CEH undertakes a huge amount of research and monitoring to understand the pressures on freshwater biodiversity and its crucial role in delivering benefits to nature, society and the economy. These benefits are not always obvious, but one of our most significant long-term monitoring sites, Loch Leven, at Kinross in Scotland, provides some interesting examples, including a case just this month when the largest brown trout ever recorded as being caught on the loch was landed, beating a record that had stood for more than 100 years.

The historic event coincided perfectly with an international meeting at the site to discuss the benefits of biodiversity in delivering ecosystem services.

News of improved angling at Loch Leven has been spreading across the world in recent years and this record catch is likely to attract even more visitors to the area, with consequent economic benefits both to the fishery and other businesses such as local hotels.

Importantly, this record catch reflects wider improvements in the biological health of the lake as a result of reductions in phosphorus pollution from surrounding industry, sewage and agriculture. Other improvements includes fewer algal blooms, the return of sensitive plant species and an increase in aquatic birds that feed on the plants, such as the pochard. 

A swan at Loch Leven - photo by Laurence Carvalho



CEH has collected data at Loch Leven since 1968 - it is one of more than 30 lake and river sites contributing biodiversity data to the UK Environmental Change Network, managed by CEH. Scientists at CEH have used this information to help identify the main causes of water quality problems at the site. Loch Leven is an excellent example of a lake that supplies a wide range of ecosystem services, including water supply, tourism and the fishery, as well as being an important wetland biodiversity site, supporting nationally and internationally important populations of wildfowl.

The benefits of managing ecosystem services better is precisely what the meeting in Kinross was focused on. Project teams from two major EU-funded research projects on this topic, OpenNESS and OPERAs, were there to discuss how to ensure that scientific knowledge on ecosystem services and natural capital is used by land managers, businessmen and policymakers to generate sustained benefits for nature, society and for the economy. One area of collaboration between the projects will be a joint pool of 35 case studies across the globe. CEH are leading two case studies in the OpenNESS project, one at Loch Leven and one examining the Cairngorms National Park.

What you can do to help our freshwater biodiversity research:

• Get involved in the recording of freshwater biodiversity via the online recording website iRecord, which is being developed by the Biological Records Centre
• Track invasive freshwater plants using the mobile phone app PlantTracker, which is integrated with iRecord

 

Further information

International Day of Biological Diversity

CEH research on freshwater biodiversity at Loch Leven

CEH research in the Cairngorms National Park

UK Lake Restoration research at CEH

Environmental Change Network

OpenNESS: http://www.openness-project.eu/

Loch Leven Fisheries Blog:  Loch Leven record smashed

CEH News (July 2012): Loch Leven water quality quality is best for 20 years

Contaminants research collaboration with China

We've highlighted in recent blog posts the importance of international collaboration in scientific research and some of the steps taken by CEH to develop new relationships with researchers abroad. The recent Memorandum of Understanding signed between environmental researchers in China and the UK [news story] resulted in a visit to China between 14-18 April of two groups of researchers from CEH and the James Hutton Institute. We've already heard from the team of lake ecologists about the links they forged on the trip. Now, in this new post by Professor Ed Tipping of CEH, he tells us about the visit of a group of contaminants researchers:

I was one of a group of scientists from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Lancaster University and the James Hutton Institute who took part in a five-day visit to the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Research Centre for Eco-Environmental Sciences in Beijing to discuss collaborative research on environmental contamination by heavy metals and persistent organic pollutants. The other members of the group were Dr Stephen Lofts (CEH), Dr Andrew Sweetman (CEH and Lancaster University) and Dr Zulin Zhang (JHI) and we met Professor Yonglong Lu and his team of Associate Researchers, post-doctoral researchers and PhD students.

Visitors and hosts at CAS / RCEES April 2013.
Back row (L to R): Ed Tipping, Zulin Zhang, Yonglong Lu, Andy Sweetman, Steve Lofts.
Front row (L to R): Shijie Liu, Yajuan Shi, Li Xu

We arrived in Beijing on Sunday 14 April with enough time to allow visits to the Forbidden City and a hutong area (a relic of the old, low-rise Beijing). The business part of the visit began in earnest on Monday 15 April, with presentations from both our group of visiting researchers and the host scientists:

• Regional ecological risk of persistent toxic substances - Prof Yonglong Lu (RCEES, CAS)
• Research on metals in CEH - Prof Ed Tipping (CEH)
• Metal contamination and potential risks in drinking-water source sites of Beijing and industrial areas of Northern Yellow and Bohai Seas, China - Dr Wei Luo (RCEES, CAS)
• Intermediate dynamic model for metals - Dr Steve Lofts (CEH)
• International regulation of persistent organic pollutants (POPs): How to use measurements and fate modelling to inform policy? - Dr Andy Sweetman (CEH / Lancaster University)
• Environmental behaviour of metals around a typical watershed - Mr Li Xu (RCEES, CAS)
• Organic contaminants in the environment - Dr Zulin Zhang (James Hutton Institute)
• Simulation of spatial explicit multimedia fate of POPs in Bohai Rim - Mr Shijie Liu (RCEES, CAS)

The presentations were followed by an in-depth discussion session, before a special welcome dinner arranged for us by our hosts.

Zhang, Sweetman, Yonglong Lu and Lofts awaiting dinner at the Blue Whale Hotel, Zhangjiakou

On Tuesday 16 April, we set out with our hosts on a field trip to the Guanting Reservoir and Yanghe River, during which we learned about the contamination status and associated problems of the reservoir, pollution sources to the river, and the competing demands for river and groundwater within the catchment.

Future collaboration

We stayed the night in the city of Zhangjiakou and on the following morning made a tour of the city and its river, before returning to Beijing, taking in the remarkable Great Wall of China en route. On Thursday morning we were able to visit the exquisite Summer Palace, before returning to CAS / RCEES for a tour of their excellent and comprehensive analytical facilities. This was followed by discussions about future collaborative possibilities, during which firm plans were made for the visit of a Chinese PhD student (Li Xu) to CEH's Lancaster site in July, to carry out metal chemistry modelling. Plans were also made for the extension of collaborative work on persistent organic pollutants with Lancaster University, and a risk assessment of pesticides in the Yanghe River catchment with James Hutton Institute. There was also more general discussion about the possibilities of larger-scale integrated work in the future.

Zhang, Lofts, Tipping and Sweetman hearing about the Guanting Reservoir from Prof Yonglong Lu

Yonglong Lu and his colleagues were terrific hosts. They made our visit both interesting and enjoyable, and we very much look forward to working with them in the future to try to understand and predict how China's natural environment will develop in the coming years and decades.

Additional information

Professor Ed Tipping, based at CEH's Lancaster site, is an environmental chemist focusing on acidity, metals, natural organic matter and nutrients in soils and waters, with an emphasis on modelling.

Dr Steve Lofts is a soil and aquatic chemist at Lancaster, with expertise in the chemistry of metals in soils and waters, particularly in relation to speciation and its consequences for metal transport, fate, bioavailability and toxicity.

CEH News: CEH and James Hutton Institute build research links in China   

CEH Blog: Building environmental research links in Beijing

Building environmental research links in Beijing

The first visit of research scientists to discuss opportunities for collaboration following the recent Memorandum of agreement signed between environmental researchers in China and the UK took place earlier this month. One of the CEH participants, Dr Bryan Spears, tells us more...

The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the Research Centre for Eco-Environmental Sciences (RCEES) signed the MoU with the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) and the James Hutton Institute (JHI) in March 2013 [news story], initially to target research on topics including recovery of polluted environments, water management, food security, soil contamination and the development of eco-toxicology tools for environmental monitoring.

Researchers from all four institutes met in Beijing between 14-18 April. One of the areas of discussion was the remediation and restoration of polluted environments, and a team including Professor Gang Pan (CAS), Professor Stephen Maberly (CEH), Dr Bryan Spears (CEH) and Dr Andrew Vinten (JHI) participated in four days of dialogue and field trips which focused on the restoration and management of lakes and their catchments. These discussions were extremely productive and were used to produce both short-term and long-term research objectives.




Figure 1: Researchers from the four groups outside CAS

  

Day 1 was allocated to joint presentations (Pan, Maberly, Spears and Vinten) with Professor Pan’s colleagues and students in attendance, to outline current areas of expertise, facilities and collaborative opportunities.

• Professor Pan outlined a range of geo-engineering techniques developed for the rapid control of cyanobacteria in freshwater lakes and presented some novel techniques for encouraging macrophyte recovery and controlling redox conditions in surface sediments.
• Professor Maberly introduced research conducted by the Lake Ecology Group at Lancaster including studies on the ecological and physical responses of lakes to climate change, nutrient enrichment and the ingress of invasive species and highlighted the potential for lakes to feedback to climate systems through carbon processing pathways.
• Dr Spears presented work on lake restoration including data screening approaches being used to combine large spatial scale and long-term lake monitoring data sets to aid the selection and application of appropriate lake management measures. Dr Spears also presented an update on whole lake experiments using geo-engineering approaches for the control of legacy phosphorus sources in bed sediments.
• Dr Vinten highlighted the need to learn from local communities, especially with regards to how the management of water resources can be fitted to local community needs – whether in Scotland or China. This need was demonstrated using stakeholder-led catchment management case studies including Rescobie Loch on the Lunan Water in Angus and in the Pantanal, Brazil.

Day 2 and 3 included an overnight visit to Datong to see the recently built large experimental ponds where a trial of Modified Local Soils had been conducted to rapidly remove harmful cyanobacterial from treatment ponds (Figure 2 and 3). This experimental facility was funded by the Datong City Water Supply and Drainage Group Ltd and will be used to develop novel management strategies for the improvement of water quality in the nearby Cetian Reservoir, as well as being developed to support international research collaborations.



Figure 2: Experimental treatment ponds








Figure 3: Professor Pan holding treated and untreated water



The visit was hosted by the water company who also participated in a discussion on local issues of water management and economic costs of treatment (Figure 4). The importance of the newly constructed experimental facility for the development of novel management measures with which treatment costs can be reduced was discussed, as was the importance of international collaboration to meet these objectives. 




Figure 4: Prof Stephen Maberly discussing the importance of the facility with
Dr Zengguang Zhang of the Datong City Water Supply and Drainage Group Ltd,
and other stakeholders.

 



On Day 4 the group discussed collaborative research opportunities and structured these into a research strategy. This strategy has at its core the collection of joint data sets and exchange of expertise to fill knowledge gaps in each collaborating institute.

After a busy few days, the trip ended on the evening of 18 April with just enough time for a social event involving Karaoke, one of the (dubious) highlights of which was a painful rendition of Robbie Williams’ “Angels”, led by CEH pair Professor Maberly and Dr Spears!

Over the coming days the team will develop a report outlining the research objectives to be submitted to institute directors for consideration. Watch this space for further updates.

Additional information

CEH Lake Ecosystems Group

CEH's UK Lake Restoration research

Staff page of Professor Stephen Maberly

Staff page of Dr Bryan Spears

CEH News: CEH and James Hutton Institute build research links in China

James Hutton Institute

CEH gives evidence to Commons water quality inquiry

Two of our CEH colleagues, Professor Andrew Johnson and Mr Neil Runnalls, gave evidence to Parliament this week, as the House of Commons Science & Technology Committee continued its new inquiry into water quality.

You can view their evidence below (from approximately 42m 25s):



Written evidence has already been submitted to the inquiry which was launched in December 2012 after the European Commission proposed a list of chemicals whose release to the environment should be controlled by wastewater treatment. In the oral evidence from science and industry, the committee heard that some of the chemicals are widely used in pharmaceutical products but their toxicity or otherwise to the environment is not yet fully understood. Furthermore the cost of their removal from wastewater has been estimated at  more than £27 billion over 20 years, although such long-term investment could prove beneficial in managing future pollutant threats. Concern was also raised at the UK's position, particularly in England, in relation to the amount of water available to dilute waste.

CEH has extensive experience in water quality monitoring and in modelling chronic and extreme threats to the environment. Professor Johnson's research at CEH focuses on threats to the aquatic environment, such as posed by chemicals including endocrine disrupting substances, as well as nanoparticles and viruses. Neil Runnalls is Programme Manager of the NERC Water Security Knowledge Exchange Programme and a CEH Business Development Manager. He attended the session on behalf of Research Councils UK.

Others giving evidence included Thames Water, the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, the Blueprint for Water Coalition, the Marine Conservation Society and Plymouth University.

You can view the full Terms of Reference of the water quality inquiry here. The Science and Technology Committee (Commons), which is chaired by Andrew Miller MP, is due to hear more evidence next month.

Additional information

Staff page of Professor Andrew Johnson, CEH

Science and Technology Committee (Commons)


Posted by Paulette Burns

Nitrogen narratives in Nairobi – confessions of a reluctant blogger

Professor Mark Sutton from CEH has been in Nairobi, Kenya, this week at the United Nations Environment Programme Governing Council. Here he reports back on experiencing life at the sharp end of the science-policy debate.

Here you find a reluctant blogger. I am currently writing this late at night, after a day full of meeting people of so many nations, many disciplines and many roles.

Half the day has been spent talking - trying to better understand what makes people tick, understanding why they hold their positions. Half the day has been spent talking to press colleagues, and lining up interviews with various newspapers, radio and TV channels - often by mobile phone. Not all of these interviews will come off, but a fraction will, and through them we can reach a much wider audience than our scientific papers and reports. The other half of the day has been spent reading and writing emails, trying to keep up with everything that is going past. (All of this would not have been possible without the great support from UNEP colleagues in DEPI, DCPI and DEWA divisions).

As you can see my maths does not add up –  but you hopefully get the right impression.

In fact impressions are everything here. As a scientist one can spend a long time designing experiments, collecting and interpreting data - refining the message for a scientific audience. But here I am, at the Governing Council of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in Nairobi. 1000 delegates have joined together to address environmental issues, to review the UNEP programme of work, and even make a few decisions about how to manage the planet's environment better.

So, what about making impressions. My point is that the delegates present here are nothing like a scientific audience. Peer review, statistics, lovely data series, and even new conceptual paradigms, don’t count for much around here. As several people here have commented, by far the strongest thing is "the narrative". Yes, it's great to have the scientific data and the evidence in the background [and really it is VERY important!]. But the thing that grabs their attention is a good story, where we simplify our science to its barest essence, turning complexity into something that everyone can understand.

This seems to be my job for the week. I am here to launch a report, "Our Nutrient World", commissioned by UNEP. It's about "the challenge to produce more food and energy with less pollution". We need nutrients, like nitrogen and phosphorus, to make crops grow and feed the world. The problem is that most of these nutrients leak out to the environment, weaving a web of air, water and soil pollution, contributing to climate change and threatening biodiversity. So let's manage nutrients better, let's think about a suitable goal, and let's get people talking.

In fact we have 10 key actions in our pack of options, from farming management techniques and sewage treatment to the ambition to recapture NO_x (nitrogen oxides) into useful products.

But not many people want to talk about smart manure spreading. So I focus on what people do want to talk about. And that is food. In a way it's their call.

Throughout the week I’ve been highlighting the fact that 80% of the harvested nitrogen in the world ends up feeding livestock rather than people, that Europeans eat 70% more protein than needed for a healthy diet, and that, for many of us on the planet, we live in a world of "food luxury" rather than struggling to maintain a minimum "food security".

It’s a great discussion for dinner and just about anywhere you like. And before you know it, the horse-meat scandal has become linked up with nutrient management. People are thinking about their food choices. We have the demitarian option on the table, and the journalists and radio producers want to hear about it.

So it seems somewhat ironic when a lunchtime radio presenter says that: surely I am speaking to the wrong audience. Surely the team from "Our Nutrient World" should instead have been making recommendations to farmers...

And, of course we are.  But if we had only done that, then no one would have been listening. The food debate has given nitrogen an opening - and a chance to explain what we can do about this pan-dimensional problem.

It’s a challenge that crosses all global change issues. We need nitrogen, but we need to manage it better. And really: every citizen needs to know nitrogen. Because until they do, the politicians will not be empowered to make decisions, and start taking the local, national and intergovernmental conversation to the next stage.

Additional information

Prof. Mark Sutton is the lead author on Our Nutrient World - The challenge to produce more food and energy with less pollution. The report is a global overview of nutrient management and was published on 18 February 2013.

Mark was also lead researcher on the European Nitrogen Assessment published in April 2011.

UNEP 1st Universal Session of the Governing Council / Global Ministerial Forum, Nairobi, 18-22 Feb 2013