Describing the Impacts of Wastewater Effluent on the Phytoplankton Community Composition in Galveston Bay
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2022-04-26
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
The treatment of wastewater has been a dilemma since humans began building and inhabiting cities. Globally, wastewater is released into oceans, bays, streams, lakes and rivers, in many cases, without much consideration for the potential ecological impacts. The impact of wastewater effluent on the phytoplankton community is not well understood. Changes in the phytoplankton community composition are related to the physicochemical parameters of the environment. Phytoplankton are essential to the marine ecosystem as they are the foundation of the food chain and support higher trophic levels. Thus, a deep understanding of the relationship between human activity and wastewater effluent impacts on the ecosystem is necessary for identifying potential environmental degradation due to human activities. As the human population increases, so will the amount of wastewater that is produced. Understanding the best methods of disposal and treatments will help ensure that the best practices are being employed. Seemingly small factors such as release rate, release time and surrounding environments of the wastewater effluent input have the potential to influence how the treated wastewater navigates 2 through the waterway. I hypothesize that changes in the phytoplankton community will be correlated to rapid and large increase in human population associated with human events. In order to test this hypothesis, I determined this relationship by establishing baseline environmental parameters and phytoplankton assemblages to data collected during large-scale human activities in Galveston Bay, Texas. My data suggests that there are no changes in the concentration of chlorophyll-a, a proxy for phytoplankton biomass, between baseline periods and large-scale human activities. This implies that the large-scale human activities did not impact the concentration of phytoplankton. Why a noticeable change was not observed in this study will be discussed, as well as suggestions for future directions of such research.
Description
Keywords
Phytoplankton, Wastewater Effluent, Community