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Quero GM, Guicciardi S, Penna P, Catenacci G, Brandinelli M, Bolognini L, Luna GM. Increasing trends in faecal pollution revealed over a decade in the central Adriatic Sea (Italy). WATER RESEARCH 2024; 262:122083. [PMID: 39067273 DOI: 10.1016/j.watres.2024.122083] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/25/2024] [Revised: 07/08/2024] [Accepted: 07/10/2024] [Indexed: 07/30/2024]
Abstract
Faecal contamination of the coastal sea poses widespread hazard to human and environmental health and is predicted to rise in response to global change and human pressure. For better management and risk reduction it is thus imperative to clarify and predict trends of faecal pollution over spatial and temporal scales, and to assess links with climate and other variables. Here, we investigated the spatio-temporal variation in the Faecal Indicator Bacteria (FIB) Escherichia coli and enterococci, over a time frame spanning 11 years (2011-2021) along a coastal area covering approximately 40 km and 59 bathing sites in the Marche region (Adriatic Sea, Italy), characterized by intense beach tourism, high riverine inputs, resident population, maritime traffic and industrial activities. Our analysis, that considers 5,183 measurements during the bathing season (April to October), shows that FIB abundance varied significantly among years. A general, although not significant, increase over time of both FIB was observed, mainly due to a general reduction of structural zeros (i.e., zeros originated from the actual absence of the response variable) over the examined time period. FIB abundances displayed their maxima and minima in different years according to the municipality, with overall peaks recorded in different months (May-June or September), whereas the lowest values were always observed in October. FIB levels were not significantly related neither to rainfalls nor to river discharge, but the activation of combined sewer overflows (CSOs), typically occurring after intense rainfall events, appeared as a necessary condition for the high faecal contamination levels. Considering climate change scenarios predicting significant increases in extreme weather events, our findings support the usefulness of analysing long-term trends to identify pollution sources, and the prioritization of control strategies to better manage the release of microbial pollutants from combined sewer overflows in coastal waters to reduce human risks.
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Affiliation(s)
- Grazia Marina Quero
- Institute of Marine Biological Resources and Biotechnologies, National Research Council (CNR-IRBIM), Ancona, Italy; NBFC, National Biodiversity Future Center, Palermo 90133, Italy
| | - Stefano Guicciardi
- Institute of Marine Biological Resources and Biotechnologies, National Research Council (CNR-IRBIM), Ancona, Italy
| | - Pierluigi Penna
- Institute of Marine Biological Resources and Biotechnologies, National Research Council (CNR-IRBIM), Ancona, Italy
| | | | | | | | - Gian Marco Luna
- Institute of Marine Biological Resources and Biotechnologies, National Research Council (CNR-IRBIM), Ancona, Italy; NBFC, National Biodiversity Future Center, Palermo 90133, Italy.
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You S, Xing L, Lesperance M, Pan Y, Zhang X. Temporal and spatial variation of domoic acid along Canada's coast. THE SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT 2024; 933:172817. [PMID: 38688372 DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.172817] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/26/2024] [Revised: 04/03/2024] [Accepted: 04/25/2024] [Indexed: 05/02/2024]
Abstract
Shellfish poisonings have posed severe risks to human health globally. The Canadian Shellfish Sanitation Program was established in 1948 to monitor the toxin levels at shellfish harvesting sites along the coast of six provinces in Canada. Domoic acid has been a causal toxin for amnesic shellfish poisoning, and a macro-scale analysis of the temporal and spatial variation of domoic acid along Canada's coast was conducted in this study. We aggregated the toxin levels by week in blue mussel (Mytilus edulis) and soft-shell clam (Mya arenaria) samples, respectively, over a one-year scale. The subsequent application of Functional Principal Component Analysis unveiled that magnitudes of seasonal variation and peaked DA levels around early summer, spring, or mid-fall formed the largest variation in the toxin levels in blue mussels along the coastlines of British Columbia and Prince Edward Island and in soft-shell calms along those of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. In Quebec, the DA levels were low and varied mostly in terms of the overall magnitude from spring to fall. Downstream correlation analyses in British Columbia further discovered that, at most sites, the strongest correlations were negative between precipitation as well as inorganic nutrients (including nitrate, nitrite, phosphate, and silicate) on one side and DA a few weeks afterward on the other. These findings indicated associations between amnesic shellfish poisoning and environmental stresses.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shuai You
- University of Victoria, 3800 Finnerty Road, Victoria, BC V8W 2Y2, Canada
| | - Li Xing
- University of Saskatchewan, 105 Administration Place, Saskatoon, SK S7N 5A2, Canada
| | - Mary Lesperance
- University of Victoria, 3800 Finnerty Road, Victoria, BC V8W 2Y2, Canada
| | - Youlian Pan
- University of Victoria, 3800 Finnerty Road, Victoria, BC V8W 2Y2, Canada; Digital Technologies Research Centre, National Research Council Canada, 1200 Montreal Road, Ottawa, ON K1A 0R6, Canada.
| | - Xuekui Zhang
- University of Victoria, 3800 Finnerty Road, Victoria, BC V8W 2Y2, Canada.
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You S, Xing L, Lesperance M, Pan Y, Zhang X. Longitudinal study of paralytic shellfish toxins along Canada's coast. ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH 2024; 252:118944. [PMID: 38636647 DOI: 10.1016/j.envres.2024.118944] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/14/2024] [Revised: 03/28/2024] [Accepted: 04/14/2024] [Indexed: 04/20/2024]
Abstract
Paralytic shellfish toxins (PST) in shellfish products have led to severe risks to human health. To monitor the risk, the Canadian Shellfish Sanitation Program has been collecting longitudinal PST measurements in blue mussel (Mytilus edulis) and soft-shell clam (Mya arenaria) samples in six coastal provinces of Canada. The spatial distributions of major temporal variation patterns were studied via Functional Principal Component Analysis. Seasonal increases in PST contamination were found to vary the most in terms of magnitude along the coastlines, which provides support for location-specific management of the time-sensitive PST contamination. In British Columbia, the first functional principal component (FPC1) indicated the variance among the magnitudes, while FPC2 indicated the seasonality of the PST levels. The temporal variations tended to be positively correlated with the abundance of dianoflagellates Alexandrium spp., and negatively with precipitation and inorganic nutrients. These findings indicate the underlying mechanism of PST variation in various geographical settings. In New Brunswick, Prince Edward, and Nova Scotia, the top FPCs indicated that the PST contamination differed mostly in the seasonal increase of the PST level during summer.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shuai You
- Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Victoria, 3800 Finnerty Road, Victoria BC V8W 2Y2, Canada
| | - Li Xing
- Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Saskatchewan, 105 Administration Place, Saskatoon SK S7N 5A2, Canada
| | - Mary Lesperance
- Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Victoria, 3800 Finnerty Road, Victoria BC V8W 2Y2, Canada
| | - Youlian Pan
- Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Victoria, 3800 Finnerty Road, Victoria BC V8W 2Y2, Canada; Digital Technologies Research Centre, National Research Council Canada, 1200 Montreal Road, Ottawa ON K1A 0R6, Canada.
| | - Xuekui Zhang
- Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Victoria, 3800 Finnerty Road, Victoria BC V8W 2Y2, Canada.
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Chazal N, Carr M, Haines A, Leight AK, Nelson NG. Assessing the utility of shellfish sanitation monitoring data for long-term estuarine water quality analysis. MARINE POLLUTION BULLETIN 2024; 203:116465. [PMID: 38723549 DOI: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2024.116465] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/06/2023] [Revised: 04/30/2024] [Accepted: 05/03/2024] [Indexed: 06/06/2024]
Abstract
Regular testing of coastal waters for fecal coliform bacteria by shellfish sanitation programs could provide data to fill large gaps in existing coastal water quality monitoring, but research is needed to understand the opportunities and limitations of using these data for inference of long-term trends. In this study, we analyzed spatiotemporal trends from multidecadal fecal coliform concentration observations collected by a shellfish sanitation program, and assessed the feasibility of using these monitoring data to infer long-term water quality dynamics. We evaluated trends in fecal coliform concentrations for a 20-year period (1999-2021) using data collected from spatially fixed sampling sites (n = 466) in North Carolina (USA). Findings indicated that shellfish sanitation data can be used for long-term water quality inference under relatively stationary management conditions, and that salinity trends can be used to investigate management-driven bias in fecal coliform observations collected in a particular area.
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Affiliation(s)
- Natalie Chazal
- Biological and Agricultural Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA
| | - Megan Carr
- Biological and Agricultural Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA
| | - Andrew Haines
- North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, Division of Marine Fisheries - Shellfish Sanitation and Recreational Water Quality Section, Morehead City, NC, USA
| | - Andrew K Leight
- Cooperative Oxford Laboratory, National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Oxford, MD, USA
| | - Natalie G Nelson
- Biological and Agricultural Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA; Center for Geospatial Analytics, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA.
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Chazal N, Carr M, Leight AK, Saia SM, Nelson NG. Short-term forecasting of fecal coliforms in shellfish growing waters. MARINE POLLUTION BULLETIN 2024; 200:116053. [PMID: 38278018 DOI: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2024.116053] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/08/2023] [Revised: 01/05/2024] [Accepted: 01/13/2024] [Indexed: 01/28/2024]
Abstract
This study sought to develop models for predicting near-term (1-3 day) fecal contamination events in coastal shellfish growing waters. Using Random Forest regression, we (1) developed fecal coliform (FC) concentration models for shellfish growing areas using watershed characteristics and antecedent hydrologic and meteorologic observations as predictors, (2) tested the change in model performance associated when forecasted, as opposed to measured, rainfall variables were used as predictors, and (3) evaluated model predictor importance in relation to shellfish sanitation management criteria. Models were trained to 10 years of coastal FC measurements (n = 1285) for 5 major shellfish management areas along the Florida (USA) coast. Model performance varied between the 5 management areas with R2 ranging from 0.36 to 0.72. Antecedent precipitation variables were among the most important predictors in the day-of forecast models in all management areas. When forecasted rainfall was included in the models, wind components became increasingly important.
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Affiliation(s)
- Natalie Chazal
- Biological and Agricultural Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA
| | - Megan Carr
- Biological and Agricultural Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA
| | - Andrew K Leight
- Cooperative Oxford Laboratory, National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Oxford, MD, USA
| | - Sheila M Saia
- Biological and Agricultural Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA; State Climate Office of North Carolina, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA
| | - Natalie G Nelson
- Biological and Agricultural Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA; Center for Geospatial Analytics, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA.
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