Infectious Disease Sensitivity to Climate and Other Driver-Pressure Changes: Research Effort and Gaps for Lyme Disease and Cryptosporidiosis.

Climate sensitivity of infectious diseases is discussed in many studies. A quantitative basis for distinguishing and predicting the disease impacts of climate and other environmental and anthropogenic driver-pressure changes, however, is often lacking. To assess research effort and identify possible key gaps that can guide further research, we here apply a scoping review approach to two widespread infectious diseases: Lyme disease (LD) as a vector-borne and cryptosporidiosis as a water-borne disease. Based on the emerging publication data, we further structure and quantitatively assess the driver-pressure foci and interlinkages considered in the published research so far. This shows important research gaps for the roles of rarely investigated water-related and socioeconomic factors for LD, and land-related factors for cryptosporidiosis. For both diseases, the interactions of host and parasite communities with climate and other driver-pressure factors are understudied, as are also important world regions relative to the disease geographies; in particular, Asia and Africa emerge as main geographic gaps for LD and cryptosporidiosis research, respectively. The scoping approach developed and gaps identified in this study should be useful for further assessment and guidance of research on infectious disease sensitivity to climate and other environmental and anthropogenic changes around the world.

Tradeoffs and synergies in wetland multifunctionality: A scaling issue.

Wetland area in agricultural landscapes has been heavily reduced to gain land for crop production, but in recent years there is increased societal recognition of the negative consequences from wetland loss on nutrient retention, biodiversity and a range of other benefits to humans. The current trend is therefore to re-establish wetlands, often with an aim to achieve the simultaneous delivery of multiple ecosystem services, i.e., multifunctionality. Here we review the literature on key objectives used to motivate wetland re-establishment in temperate agricultural landscapes (provision of flow regulation, nutrient retention, climate mitigation, biodiversity conservation and cultural ecosystem services), and their relationships to environmental properties, in order to identify potential for tradeoffs and synergies concerning the development of multifunctional wetlands. Through this process, we find that there is a need for a change in scale from a focus on single wetlands to wetlandscapes (multiple neighboring wetlands including their catchments and surrounding landscape features) if multiple societal and environmental goals are to be achieved. Finally, we discuss the key factors to be considered when planning for re-establishment of wetlands that can support achievement of a wide range of objectives at the landscape scale.

Hydro-climatic changes of wetlandscapes across the world.

Assessments of ecosystem service and function losses of wetlandscapes (i.e., wetlands and their hydrological catchments) suffer from knowledge gaps regarding impacts of ongoing hydro-climatic change. This study investigates hydro-climatic changes during 1976-2015 in 25 wetlandscapes distributed across the world's tropical, arid, temperate and cold climate zones. Results show that the wetlandscapes were subject to precipitation (P) and temperature (T) changes consistent with mean changes over the world's land area. However, arid and cold wetlandscapes experienced higher T increases than their respective climate zone. Also, average P decreased in arid and cold wetlandscapes, contrarily to P of arid and cold climate zones, suggesting that these wetlandscapes are located in regions of elevated climate pressures. For most wetlandscapes with available runoff (R) data, the decreases were larger in R than in P, which was attributed to aggravation of climate change impacts by enhanced evapotranspiration losses, e.g. caused by land-use changes.

A scalable dynamic characterisation approach for water quality management in semi-enclosed seas and archipelagos.

In semi-enclosed seas, eutrophication may affect both the coastal waters and the whole sea. We develop and test a modelling approach that can account for nutrient loads from land as well as for influences and feedbacks on water quality across the scales of a whole semi-enclosed sea and its coastal zones. We test its applicability in the example cases of the Baltic Sea and one of its local archipelagos, the Archipelago Sea. For the Baltic Sea scale, model validation shows good representation of surface water quality dynamics and a generally moderate model performance for deeper waters. For the Archipelago Sea, management scenario simulations show that successful sea measures may have the most important effects on coastal water quality. This highlights the need to consistently account for whole-sea water-quality dynamics and management effects, in addition to effects of land drivers, in modelling for characterisation and management of local water quality.

The risk of overestimating the risk-metal leaching to groundwater near contaminated glass waste deposits and exposure via drinking water.

This study investigates metal contamination patterns and exposure to Sb, As, Ba, Cd and Pb via intake of drinking water in a region in southeastern Sweden where the production of artistic glass has resulted in a large number of contaminated sites. Despite high total concentrations of metals in soil and groundwater at the glassworks sites properties, all drinking water samples from households with private wells, located at a 30-640m distance from a glassworks site, were below drinking water criteria from the WHO for Sb, As, Ba and Cd. A few drinking water samples showed concentrations of Pb above the WHO guideline, but As was the only element found in concentrations that could result in human exposure near toxicological reference values. An efficient retention of metals in the natural soil close to the source areas, which results in a moderate impact on local drinking water, is implied. Firstly, by the lack of significant difference in metal concentrations when comparing households located upstream and downstream of the main waste deposits, and secondly, by the lack of correlation between the metal concentration in drinking water and distance to the nearest glassworks site. However, elevated Pb and Cd concentrations in drinking water around glassworks sites when compared to regional groundwater indicate that diffuse contamination of the soils found outside the glassworks properties, and not only the glass waste landfills, may have a significant impact on groundwater quality. We further demonstrate that different mobilization patterns apply to different metals. Regarding the need to use reliable data to assess drinking water contamination and human exposure, we finally show that the conservative modelling approaches that are frequently used in routine risk assessments may result in exposure estimates many times higher than those based on measured concentrations in the drinking water that is actually being used for consumption.

Nutrient transport scenarios in a changing Stockholm and Mälaren valley region, Sweden.

Norrström catchment, west of Stockholm, covers most of the Mälaren valley. Provision of drinking water from Lake Mälaren is an absolute precondition for continued growth in the region. Stockholm County's population is expected to increase by 600,000 people before 2030. Current climate change predictions anticipate significant temperature and precipitation increases. We implement the PolFlow model embedded in PCRaster for quantifying water and substances fluxes on the catchment scale over a 30-year time horizon. We formulate scenarios for changes in water quality and quantity due to climate change and population development. Results indicate a mild impact from climate change on surface flow rates but substantial effects on sub-surface residence times. Population development slightly affects nutrients loads. Using source apportionment and sensitivity analysis, we identify a number of critical parameters/processes to be further studied, in order for future results to be more reliable and usable in a water resources management context.