Our paper on the impacts of wastewater treatment plants on whole-stream metabolism has just been published and is available here: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0256292. In this paper, we looked at nine sites located above or below four WWTPs to see how metabolism and dissolved oxygen changed over 13 months. We found some of the highest rates of GPP and ER above any WWTP influence, and spatial patterns in metabolism were most strongly controlled by light. That said, metabolism rates were higher below plants than above, but this impact was attenuated within about 1-3 km of stream length. We also looked at DO criteria used by stream managers to assess ecosystem health and found the highest number of potential violations above any WWTP impact. We also found that, if average DO is used, longer monitoring periods result in fewer violations (so violations are not chronic), but if absolute number of violations is used, this will discourage long-term monitoring to fully understand how the stream functions across time!
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