Plant taxa identified in 90 U.S. Great Lakes coastal emergent wetlands were evaluated as indicators of physical environment. Canonical correspondence analysis using the 40 most common taxa showed that water depth and tussock height explained the greatest amount of species-environment interaction among ten environmental factors measured as continuous variables (water depth, tussock height, latit...

During a 3-year study, Clostridium perfringens was investigated in defined fecal sources from a temperate alluvial backwater area of a large river system. The results reveal that using C. perfringens as a conservative water quality indicator for total fecal pollution monitoring is no longer justified but suggest that it can be used as a tracer for excreta from nonherbivorous wildlife and human ...

Tissue samples from 1,117 fish of 25 species were collected from 1991 through 1996 at 13 locations along the River Elbe. The principal indicator species were perch (Perca fluviatilis) (n=118), chub (Leuciscus cephalus L.) (n=113) and roach (Rutilus rutilus) (n=138). Mercury (Hg) concentrations in muscle and liver were determined by atomic absorption spectrometry. The liver/muscle index in three...

Key-words: particulate organic matter, periphyton, nitrogen stable isotope, subtropical river The stable nitrogen isotope ratios (δ15N) of particulate organic matter (POM) and periphyton were measured at sites along the Dashahe River, a short subtropical watercourse in SE China. δ15N values of both POM and periphyton tended to increase from upstream to downstream, ranging from 1.1‰ to 7.4‰ for ...

It has been observed in several settings that schistosomiasis is less prevalent in segments of river with fast current than in those with slow current. Some believe that this can be attributed to flush-away of intermediate host snails. However, free-swimming parasite larvae are very active in searching for suitable hosts, which indicates that the flush-away of larvae may also be very important....

The concavity, or curvature, of river profiles has long been taken to be a fundamental indicator of the underlying processes governing fluvial erosion, and thereby of landscape evolution. However, erosion laws have generally been derived without accounting for the strong orographically driven gradients in precipitation typically found in mountainous regions. In addition, field measurements have...

This study aimed to identify specific river sources of fecal contamination by applying pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) to environmental water samples from a recreational beach in Japan. The genotypes of all Enterococcus faecium and Enterococcus faecalis strains used as indicators of fecal pollution on the recreational beach and rivers were analyzed by PFGE, and the PFGE profiles of the ...

The Buffalo River and its dams are major surface water sources used for fresh produce irrigation, raw water abstraction and recreation in parts of the Eastern Cape Province in South Africa. Over a 12-month period (August 2010 to July 2011), we assessed the bacteriological qualities of water from the river and 3 source water dams along its course. Faecal indicator bacteria (FIB), including total...

Great rivers of the central United States (Upper Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio rivers) are valuable economic and cultural resources, yet until recently their ecological condition has not been well quantified. In 2004-2005, as part of the Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program for Great River Ecosystems (EMAP-GRE), we measured legacy organochlorines (OCs) (pesticides and polychlorinat...

Floodplains have been intensively altered in industrialized countries, but are now increasingly being restored. It is therefore important to assess the effect of these restoration projects on the aquatic and terrestrial components of ecosystems. However, despite being functionally crucial components of terrestrial ecosystems, soils are generally overlooked in floodplain restoration assessments....