Ecological consequences of large dams, particularly regarding the Three Gorges Dam (TGD) on the Yangtze River in China, have been controversially and internationally discussed. Water quality within the Three Gorges Reservoir (TGR) has been deteriorated by highly underestimated eutrophication and algal blooms. Globally, the TGR is delineated from other comparable reservoirs by its low mean water...

While developed societies made significant progress in reducing the discharge of many wastes— including industrial wastes, organic matter in sewage, sludge, contaminated sediments and other material dumped at sea, toxic compounds, and oil— into coastal waters, nutrient over-enrichment intensified and spread widely among the planet’s coastal environments during the last half of the 20 century. T...

Water quality evaluation entails both randomness and fuzziness. Considering that water eutrophication evaluation involves many indices, different classifications and interval values, fuzzy variable sets theory was developed to Lake Baiyangdian as a study case. Taking reference to eutrophication standard of Chinese lakes and local characteristic of Lake Baiyangdian, eutrophication degree of lake...

China is facing intense coastal eutrophication. Large-scale seaweed aquaculture in China is popular, now accounting for over 2/3's of global production. Here, we estimate the nutrient removal capability of large-scale Chinese seaweed farms to determine its significance in mitigating eutrophication. We combined estimates of yield and nutrient concentration of Chinese seaweed aquaculture to quant...

Although the process of eutrophication is reasonably well understood in lakes, there is currently no conceptual understanding of how eutrophication develops in rivers. This issue is addressed here. A review of the main processes controlling the development of eutrophication in lakes has been carried out as a precursor to considering the effect in rivers. The importance of hydraulic flushing in ...

Eutrophication, regarded as the most immediate environmental consequence of extensive phosphorus usage in contemporary societies, has received wide attention. If the current level of human-induced global environmental impacts continues, there is a chance of occurrence of nearly 2.4–2.7-fold increase in nitrogen and phosphorus driven eutrophication of terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystem...

In the Central Red Sea, healthy coral reefs meet intense coastal development, but data on the effects of related stressors for reef functioning are lacking. This in situ study therefore investigated the independent and combined effects of simulated overfishing through predator/grazer exclusion and simulated eutrophication through fertilizer addition on settlement of reef associated invertebrate...

Eutrophication increases primary production and changes the relative abundance, taxonomic composition and spatial distribution of primary producers within an aquatic ecosystem. The changes in composition and location of resources alter the distribution and flow of energy and biomass throughout the food web. Changes in productivity also alter the physico-chemical environment, which has further e...

In estuaries, phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N) inputs generally control freshwater and saltwater primary production, respectively. Improved wastewater P removal and a P-detergent ban in the late 1980s decreased P loading to the nutrient over-enriched Neuse River Estuary, NC, without a contemporaneous reduction in N loading. This led to a decrease in upstream freshwater phytoplankton production a...

The importance of the benthic filter feeding community as a natural control on eutrophication is considered. The important environmental factors favorable for such a control are relatively shallow water depths and a dense benthic filter feeding commmunity of small animals. The criteria are summarized in the equivalence of the water recycling time, t, for the benthic community and the time const...