By: Rosa Saba, The Star Calgary

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Accurate monitoring of cyanobacteria is important for watershed management, potable water production, recreational water use and water re-use. Cost effective, fast and reliable cyanobacterial cell identification and enumeration methods are thus much-needed, essential components of water quality monitoring programs.

In recent decades, human activities and climate change have led to more frequent cyanobacteria occurrences in surface waters. Cyanobacteria often lead to excessive growth and/or potentially harmful blooms which can threaten human health. As a result, many jurisdictions have introduced specific water quality regulations to protect public health and safety. Routine monitoring, however, is both expensive and challenging, and typically involves sending samples to labs for manual analysis by technicians, which can take up to two days to complete. Indirect quantification methods that have been developed often require expensive equipment not usually found in water quality laboratories.

In this study, we present a novel imaging-based method as proof-of-concept for the rapid and accurate identification and enumeration of cynobacteria with conventional equipment available in typical water quality laboratories.

Methodology

In this study, a two-phase model-driven method of automated enumeration was developed to quantify the cell concentration (i.e. cells/ml) of two representative species of freshwater cyanobacteria: Microcystis aeruginosa and Anabaena flos-aquae. Fluorescent light was used to excite the natural photosynthetic pigments in the cells for contrast enhancement. A probabilistic unsupervised classification approach was used to distinguish the target cells from their surrounding background. In Phase 1, quantitative information associated with individual cells (e.g. dimensions and morphology) was analyzed and used for model calibration. In Phase 2, the quantitative information obtained in Phase 1 was used to separate the target cells from the background matrix and estimate their concentration.

An overall schematic of the enumeration process and numerical method is provided in Fig. 1.

Figure 1: Schematic of overall process of image acquisition and analysis.

Outcomes

One of the major practical challenges for automated enumeration of cyanobacteria is the low and insufficient contrast between target cells and the surrounding background matrix. To overcome this technical barrier, specific wavelengths of light were utilized to excite natural photosynthetic pigments present in the cells, causing them to fluoresce and thus achieving contrast enhancement.

The model calibration process was the most critical step in the development of the proposed method.

It involved quantitative evaluation of the cellular characteristics of the cyanobacteria, including dimensions and morphological features, and delivered the baseline statistics needed for cell and bio-volume enumeration. Various sonication periods were tested to determine the optimum treatment time. Using two minutes of sonication, the estimated two-dimensional areas of the cyanobacteria cells were in agreement with commonly reported values, thus demonstrating the accuracy and efficiency of the approach.

In order to compare quantification results, cyanobacteria cells were enumerated manually using a hemocytometer as the reference, and indirectly using fluorometric probes, and by the developed method and images. The cell enumeration results obtained using the developed automated method closely corresponded to the reference measurements. Good linear relationships between the reference concentrations and the measured concentrations from the fluorometric probes were not observed. Notably, the developed method generally yielded smaller standard deviations than the other methods. Perhaps more importantly, the imaging-based nature of the proposed method inherently provides a lower limit of detection than use of a hemacytometer because larger sample volumes (i.e. enumeration areas) can be processed.

When several species of microorganisms are present, cell separation constitutes another challenge to using automated enumeration. To validate the accuracy of the developed method, mixed cultures at different volumetric proportions were prepared and tested. The results obtained using the developed enumeration method showed good correlation, and the determined volumetric proportions of different species were all in agreement with the theoretical values. These results show that the developed method can be used for both accurate cell enumeration and differentiation between Anabaena from Microcystis cells in a mixed culture.

Suspensions of Microcystis and Anabaena were diluted using untreated Lake Ontario water without any cyanobacterial cells. Results obtained with the developed method presented a strong linear correlation to the manual enumeration results for both cyanobacteria species. Compared with results using laboratory water, however, the enumeration results for cells suspended in lake water had higher variability, lower accuracy, and lower F1 scores. This is because unwanted fluorescent objects (i.e. debris, clay particles and microorganisms) with various shapes and morphology present in natural water may have interfered with the quality of the collected images.

Lastly, in order to test the developed method against cells with similar morphologies, cells of the green algae Ankistrodesmus were added to the cyanobacterial cultures. To evaluate the mixed culture containing cells with relatively similar morphologies, a more complex classifier was used. Using the dataset of either a Microcystis, Anabaena or Ankistrodesmus cell images, an exploration of different machine learning algorithms was first completed to identify the most effective method for identification. It was found that a Support Vector Machine with a quadratic kernel had the highest performance of 89.2% accuracy when classifying using five-fold cross-validation. As would be expected, the largest error of misidentification resulted from the morphological similarities between Anabaena and Ankistrodesmus.

Conclusions

The developed method demonstrates proof-of-concept that contemporary image analysis and processing technology has advanced to a level that enables the identification and enumeratation of cyanobacteria in a manner that is rapid, is at least as accurate, and is more sensitive, than currently available methods, and is achievable without requiring additional equipment beyond what is available in the typical water quality laboratory. Significant time and resources can be saved by using this type of method as compared to other cell enumeration methods in use for routine water monitoring. Notably, the concurrent analysis of  Microcystis, Anabaena and Ankistrodesmus demonstrated that imaging-driven machine learning approaches can be used to accurately differentiate between microorganisms with relatively similar morphologies. This work underscores the promise of these techniques and the need for their further investigation to develop reasonably low cost, rapid screening tools for evaluating water quality and public health risk.

Jin, C., Mesquita, M.M.F., Deglint, J.L., Emelko, M.B., & Wong, A. (2018). Quantification of cyanobacterial cells via a novel imaging-driven technique with an integrated fluorescence signature. Scientific Reports, 8:9055.

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By Ed Struzik, author of Fire Storm

Cameron Falls in Canada’s Waterton Lakes National Park runs cold and clear in summer, when as many as a half-million people come to canoe, fish, hike, and bike in this pristine Rocky Mountain landscape along the Alberta/Montana border. On very rare occasions, it runs a Pepto Bismol pink when heavy rains stir up argillite, a red mudstone that is found upstream. But on June 21, residents, tourists, and park officials were shocked to see the waterfalls suddenly running pitch black. Heavy rain had flushed in soot, ash, and charred tree debris from a fire that burned most of the 195-square-mile park the year before.

When it happened again a few weeks later following another violent rainstorm, the dark flow of mountain water rushed in with such ferocity that it piled charred branches and debris into the gorge, a neighboring parking lot, and a street of a community inside the park. The 2017 blaze had been so intense that at one point it danced and swirled 16 miles from one end of the park to the other in less than eight hours. So much of the park had burned that officials initially closed nearly 80 percent of the backcountry trails.

As hotter and dryer conditions spawn an increasing number of wildfires in North America and around the world, one of the overlooked impacts of these worsening conflagrations is on aquatic environments and drinking water supplies. Just as wildfires can have a regenerative effect on woodlands, so, too, can fires provide some benefits to streams and rivers in burned areas. But scientists are warning that intense and repeated fires can damage the ecology of waterways by exposing them to the sun’s heat, exacerbating flooding and erosion along denuded hillsides, and releasing toxins such as mercury that are often liberated from soil and tree trunks.

With fires burning bigger, hotter, and more frequently, scientists say the threats to water supplies and aquatic systems are bound to escalate.

The effect of major wildfires on drinking water supplies can also be severe, as evidenced by fires that burned upstream of places such as Fort McMurray in Canada in 2016; Denver and Fort Collins, Colorado in 2002 and 2012; and Canberra, Australia in 2003. Water treatment plants in those places were overwhelmed by sedimentation, dissolved organic carbon, and chemicals that were released by fire.

With fires burning bigger, hotter, and more frequently, the threats to water supplies and aquatic systems are bound to escalate, according to Deborah Martin, a Colorado-based U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) scientist. She points out that an increasing number of regional, national, and global water assessments are now including wildfire in evaluating the risks to drinking water.

“Forests yield 40 percent of the water for the world’s 100 largest cities,” she says. “Many of these cities are already water-stressed because of drought, climate change, and increasing water consumption. The increase in wildfire activity could make it much worse.”

Cameron Falls runs black with soot and charred debris on June 21, one year after a fire burned through Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta. PARKS CANADA / KALEIGH WATSON

Barb Johnston, a Parks Canada ecologist, is confident that the spruce, pine, and aspen in Waterton Lakes park will recover as they typically do after a wildfire. What concerns her and some local residents more is the possibility that this fire, like several other recent wildfires in the United States and Canada, will have a deleterious impact on fish and drinking water.

So far, the impact on ground and surface water that local ranchers, residents, and backcountry visitors use appears to be minimal. But Parks Canada has called in University of Alberta forest hydrologist Uldis Silins — an expert on the impact of forest fires on freshwater ecosystems — to set up water monitoring stations throughout the park.

Late last month, Silins and a research associate, Chris Williams, visited the park, where they discovered black mounds of mud alongside channels of Cameron Creek. The mud was rich in nitrogen and phosphorous that accumulated after the fire, driving the growth of green algae in the creek.

“You don’t normally see algae growing in these nutrient-poor mountain streams, especially at this time of year when it can snow,” says Silins. “But that’s what an intense fire often does.”

After fires in Australia, the quality of the water was so poor that Canberra was forced to build a new water treatment plant.

The relationship between wildfire and watersheds is complex, with each affecting the other in ways that were largely overlooked until the mid-1990s, when intense fires began burning the mountain forests in Colorado. More than 30 major wildfires have burned in the state since then.

Among the most notable was the Hayman Fire, which burned 138,000 acres across four counties in 2002, forcing the closure of some federal and state parks at the height of the tourist season. The intense fires removed many of the trees from parts of the mountain landscape. In the hot drought conditions that followed, the soils in those denuded landscapes baked. Some spring-fed streams stopped flowing. Chemical compounds that were vaporized by the fire got driven into the soil. As they condensed, they formed an impervious layer just below the surface.

Without trees, vegetation, and a stable soil structure to absorb the heavy rains that followed, tons of ash, debris, heavy metals, and nutrients were flushed through the watershed. This resulted in the precipitous decline of the blue-ribbon South Platte River trout fishery. Worst of all was that the affected watershed provides drinking water to 75 percent of the state’s residents. Hundreds of tons of sediment filled lakes and reservoirs. Intakes became clogged. Water quality suffered not just for a few days, but for several years.

To address the problem, more than 60 scientists from various disciplines were brought in. Crews dredged tens of thousands of tons of sediment. More than 175,000 trees were planted. Still, the water quality problems persist and the South Platte fishery has not fully recovered.

Since then, other cities, states, and provinces have undergone similar challenges.

Ecologist Chris Williams examines water monitoring equipment in Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta to track nutrient levels and sedimentation. Scientists have found a layer of soot and ash coating the bottom of many of the park’s streams. ED STRUZIK / YALE E360

The Australian city of Canberra suffered terribly in 2003 when fires blackened the landscape along the Cotter watershed, which provides 96 percent of the water for the 350,000 people who live in Canberra and nearby Queanbeyan. Heavy rains that followed caused massive erosion and flooding. More than 2,800 tons of sediment and an array of metals such as iron and manganese were dumped into the watershed. The quality of water was so poor that the city of Canberra was forced to build a new water treatment plant.

Fort Collins, Colorado was hit almost as hard in 2012 when the tainted runoff from badly burned areas overwhelmed its water treatment plant. Residents there were fortunate because the city was able to draw from a nearby lake that had not been affected by the fire.

In the Alberta tar sands town of Fort McMurray, which was nearly destroyed by fire in 2016, Silins and his colleague, Monica Emelko, a University of Waterloo environmental engineer, have been helping the city cope with the high amounts of dissolved organic carbon and sediment that continue to challenge the municipal water treatment plant.

The biggest issue, according to Emelko, is the dissolved organic carbon that is released by wildfires. When mixed with the chlorine that is used to treat water, it can produce carcinogens that most treatment plant technicians don’t have the expertise to manage. To deal with the challenges, Fort McMurray is now spending more than twice as much on chemicals as it did before the fire burned along the Athabasca River. Other municipalities that purify water supplies with chlorine could face a similar threat in the wake of severe forest fires, scientists say.

The 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire burned along the Athabasca River, damaging the drinking water supplies for tens of thousands of people. ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE

Wildfires are not always bad for watersheds, according to John Moody, a USGS scientist who began examining the relationship between fire and water in 1996 when the Buffalo Creek fire burned 11,600 acres of forest southwest of Denver. The erosion that often follows, he points out, replenishes the course grain sediments that are critical to fish habitat. The fires also flush in nutrients that are beneficial to fish. In the years since a major forest fire in 2003 in the Castle Crown Wilderness, west of Waterton Lakes park, the fish in burned areas have grown larger than fish in unburned areas, mainly because large amounts of nutrients released by the fire have flowed into rivers and creeks.

Fish, however, are vulnerable to the chemicals that are often liberated by fire. Scientist Erin Kelly discovered this in the summer of 2000 when a wildfire in Jasper National Park coincided with a study she was conducting on mercury concentrations in alpine lakes. Following the fire, the doubling of the lake’s nitrogen concentration and a quadrupling of the phosphorus concentration was not a big surprise. What was not expected was a five-fold increase of mercury in fish.

Fire liberated the mercury from the soil and trees in the forest, and changes in the food web moved the mercury quickly up the food chain. In this case, invertebrates feasted on the nutrients and mercury that the fire introduced. Rainbow trout and lake herring capitalized on that bounty of invertebrates, and passed on the mercury to lake trout that prey on them. At the top of this food chain, the concentrations were high enough for government officials to issue a health warning for fish consumption by humans.

Silins is not alone among his peers in expecting that the situation will get worse as forest fires intensify in a warming world. The demand for his expertise is now higher than ever, with calls coming from as far away as Tennessee, where fire burned in the Great Smoky Mountains in 2016, and from British Columbia, which has undergone a record number of burns in recent years.

All communities that draw water from forested watersheds will eventually have to deal with water that has been degraded by fire, warns one scientist.

“Nowadays,” he says, “we can’t keep up with the requests we’ve been getting for advice and help. I don’t see it slowing down. The impact that wildfire has on watersheds is a challenge that is going to get a lot more intense.”

John Moody says there are two things to watch for in the future: the intensity and frequency of forest fires, and the extreme precipitation – those that unleash a lot of rain in 30 minutes – that follow a fire weeks and months after it is extinguished, when soils may not be able to absorb as much moisture as they normally do. Those are the events that can cause severe flooding, extreme sedimentation, and the liberation of undesirable chemicals.

Fernando Rosario-Ortiz — an associate professor of environmental engineering at the University of Colorado, Boulder and the lead author of a recent report on the impact of wildfires on watersheds and water supplies — warns that at some point in the future, 100 percent of the communities that draw their water from forested watersheds are going to face the challenge of dealing with water that has been degraded by fire.

“It’s not a matter of if, but when, a fire is going to degrade that water,” he says. “Wildfires have been burning more intensely and more often. Downstream communities and utilities need to start planning for worst-case scenarios… This is an emerging challenge that is not going to go away.”

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Monica Emelko, a civil and environmental engineering professor at Waterloo, is excited about the potential of new AI technology to improve water monitoring at treatment plants.

Monica B. Emelko sits at a microscope in her University of Waterloo lab (2018).

Progress on new artificial intelligence (AI) technology by Waterloo Engineering researchers could improve monitoring at treatment plants to help ensure clean water and safeguard public health.

The researchers have developed AI software capable of identifying and quantifying different kinds of cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, a threat to completely shut down water systems when it suddenly proliferates.

“It’s critical to have running water, even if we have to boil it, for basic hygiene,” says Monica Emelko, a civil and environmental engineering professor and a member of the Water Institute at Waterloo. “If you don’t have running water, people start to get sick.”

The operational AI system uses software in combination with a microscope to inexpensively and automatically analyze water samples for algae cells in about one to two hours, including confirmation of results by a human analyst.

Current testing methods, which typically involve sending samples to labs for manual analysis by technicians, take one to two days. Some automated systems already exist as well, but they require extremely expensive equipment and supplies.

According to Emelko and collaborator Alexander Wong, a systems design engineering professor at Waterloo, the AI system would provide an early warning of problems since testing could be done much more quickly and frequently.

Moving forward, the goal is an AI system to continuously monitor water flowing through a microscope for a wide range of contaminants and microorganisms.

“This brings our research into a high-impact area,” says Wong, a Canada Research Chair in artificial intelligence and a founding member of the Waterloo Artificial Intelligence Institute. “Helping to ensure safe water through widespread deployment of this technology would be one of the great ways to really make AI count.”

The researchers estimate it may take two to three years to refine a fully commercial sample testing system for use in labs or in-house at treatment plants. The technology to provide continuous monitoring could be three to four years away.

“We need to protect our water supplies,” says Emelko, noting climate change and development are both increasing the risks. “This tool will arm us with a sentinel system, a more rapid indication when they are threatened.

“The exciting piece is that we’ve shown testing utilizing AI can be done quickly and well. Now it’s time to work through all the possible scenarios and optimize the technology.”

Adjunct engineering professor Chao Jin, doctoral student Jason Deglint and research associate Maria Mesquita are also collaborators.

A study on the research, Quantification of cyanobacterial cells via a novel imaging-driven technique with an integrated fluorescence signature, was recently published in the journal Scientific Reports.

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“High-quality water supplies such as those in many parts of North America are at greatest risk from the threats of natural disturbances such as wildfires and floods,” said Monica Emelko, professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and University of Waterloo Water Institute member. “These disturbances, exacerbated by climate change, are increasing in severity and are likely to result in a long-lasting legacy of water quality deterioration in several parts of Canada.”

In Ontario alone, there have been over 120 fires this summer, according to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry. Disturbances like forest fires are having an increasingly negative effect on source water and are posing a challenge to the design and operational response capacities of water quality treatment plants. In some cases, such disturbances have caused service disruptions.

While forest management impacts on water have been well studied, little if any of that work has focused specifically on impacts to drinking water treatability. Emelko’s network forWater – brings together researchers, government agencies and industry professionals from different disciplines across Canada who are focused on understanding and developing response strategies to climate change threats.

“Canada is neither unique nor exempt from climate change threats,” said Emelko. “Increasing swings in weather—rainy periods followed by long, dry hot periods—enhance the growth of vegetation that fuels wildfires in many regions. Fire danger increases with the right combination of temperature, humidity, winds, and rainfall. More days of higher fire danger means more risk of wildfires—it’s not ‘if,’ but ‘when’. And our water supplies are often especially vulnerable.”

Safe drinking water is one of society’s most critical needs. Most Canadians are just becoming aware of how fragile this essential resource is, and of the potentially catastrophic effects that natural disturbances—intensified by climate change—can have on drinking water security.

“The water used by the majority of Canadians, Americans, and many others globally originates in forests,” said Emelko. “Traditional approaches for protecting these critical water supplies cannot protect them from the potentially devastating effects of mother nature. The forWater Network is leveraging diverse expertise in water quality and treatment, hydrology, forest management, and resource economics to provide the critical new knowledge and technologies needed to build resilient, adaptive communities. This starts by ensuring water security in Canada and globally.”

The forWater network has over 20 domestic and international partners.

In the media

National Post: ‘Hard on water:’ Smoke not the only long-range effect of wildfires

Vancouver Sun: ‘Hard on water:’ Smoke not the only long-range effect of wildfires

Huffington Post: British Columbia Blazes Could Impact Local Water Supply For Years

CityNews: ‘Hard on water:’ Smoke not the only long-range effect of wildfires

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Here in Edmonton, 24/7 access to all the water we want often means less thought is given to what is literally the stuff of life, says Jesse Skwaruk (Water and Wastewater Technician ’13), a former water treatment plant operator and watershed technologist for Epcor, the city’s water utility.

“Water is what we’re made of,” he says. “Without it we have nothing.”

As part of an effort to remind us of the role water plays in every aspect of our lives in Alberta, Skwaruk joined with a group of colleagues to organize World Water Day 2018 at NAIT on Thursday, March 22.

Alberta isn’t likely to soon see a situation like Cape Town but that’s not to say it’s OK to let water gush down the drain while we brush our teeth. In a city with the luxury of a river running through it, we asked Skwaruk, now pursuing a doctorate in water management at the University of Waterloo, to debunk three water myths, and bring home the idea that this resource may be more finite than we think.

Myth 1: Water is abundant

There’s a lot of water in Alberta, Skwaruk acknowledges, but at the same time, “we have to realize that there are a lot of different stresses on our water resources.”

Municipalities, industry and agriculture are a part of those stresses, and each needs to be strategic about usage and stewardship, he adds. If improperly managed, fertilizer or animal waste can find their way to waterways, as can soil from land stripped of trees. The average canadian uses 251 litres a day. Currently in Cape Town, residents are restricted to 50.

“Quality is the other side of the coin,” he notes. Abundance can be undermined by pollutants. As part of his current studies, Skwaruk is investigating the impact of forest fires on our water supply. Ash, for example, makes its way to rivers, which in turn make their way to cities.

“If these waters are impacted by wildfire, you’re getting a lot of dirty material in there. How is that going to affect how water can be treated at water treatment plants?”

Myth 2: Water is free

“Water is not free. Although taking it from nature doesn’t cost us anything, there are costs associated with treating water, quality control, the electricity to fuel the pumps to send that water to your home, says Skwaruk.

Originating in the Rocky Mountains, Edmonton’s water is treated more rigorously than bottled varieties, according to Epcor, the city’s supplier.

Edmonton’s water is treated more rigorously than bottled varieties.

After being piped from the North Saskatchewan River, it spends seven to 15 hours being clarified and disinfected at two water plants with a combined daily capacity of 680 million litres. It’s carefully tested and piped to our homes once it passes.

In 2016, operating costs to treat and deliver water to Edmontonians reached nearly $95 million.

Myth 3: One person can’t make a difference

“It’s not a one-person job to manage water,” says Skwaruk. “It’s not up to the mayor or the environment minister. A collaborative, community management strategy is required. Everybody has a responsibility to manage water effectively.”

In Cape Town, that responsibility rests most clearly – and urgently – with residents. Recommendations include two-minute showers, using grey water to flush toilets, limiting laundry to a load a week, handsanitizer over washing, and more.

Here in Canada, Skwaruk sees it as his job put his experiences and education to use in ensuring our access to water.

“I’ve travelled various places and seen how people don’t have access to water like we do. We’re very fortunate that we have this. With this knowledge that I have gained, it’s important that I do something about. I feel as if I have a responsibility to act upon that knowledge.”

Words: Scott Messenger | Images: NAIT staff, iStock

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Monica Emelko of the University of Waterloo delivered the 78th bi-annual Forest Industry Lecture on November 2, 2017, at the University of Alberta.

On November 2, 2017, the Department of Renewable Resources at the University of Alberta hosted the 40^th year of the biannual Forest Industry Lecture Series. A staple of the faculty’s work in the area of forestry, this lecture series occurs in fall and spring, each year. This year’s lecture was on the “Strategic Importance of Canada’s Forests in National Drinking Water Security,” delivered by Water Science, Technology & Policy director, Monica Emelko

Below, see an article posted by Peter Murphy, professor emeritus of the Department of Renewable Resources. It provides a great historical explanation of the event.

The Forest Industry Lecture Series (FILS) began and was developed as a collaborative event by members of the “forestry community” in Alberta to enrich the Forestry Program at the University of Alberta. The first Forestry class had enrolled in the fall of 1970, initiated as a Faculty program through the vision of Dr. Fenton MacHardy, then Dean of Agriculture. In 1975, Dr. Allan A. Warrack, then Minister of Lands and Forests in the new Peter Lougheed government, made an offer to Dean MacHardy, saying that he had done well in developing the forestry program, but students needed enrichment through speakers from outside who could bring in fresh insights. The offer was that his department would match any outside funds the faculty could raise to support a position or lecture series.

Several of the larger forest products companies in western Canada immediately responded and for two years, in 1975 and 1976, this new outside funding supported two visiting lecturers: Maxwell MacLaggan and Dr. Desmond I. Crossley, whose expertise were respectively forest industry, logging and forest products; and silviculture and forest management.

In the meantime, Arden A. Rytz encouraged the sawmilling and plywood industries to add their support through the Alberta Forest Products Association (AFPA), of which he had become executive director. Arden Rytz was a forester, graduating from UBC after wartime service in south-east Asia. This collaborative approach to shared funding has enabled this lecture series to achieve the level of success that it enjoys today.

The first designated Forest Industry Lecture was given in 1977 by the noted Canadian and internationally respected forester Dr. Ross Silversides, who spoke on Industrial forestry in a changing Canada. The University and the Department of Renewable Resources in particular, deeply appreciates the support of its many sponsors. View past lectures and upcoming invited speakers here.

Original article written by: Dr. Peter Murphy, professor emeritus 2016-10-26

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The AWWA recognizes these theses on the basis of originality, practical application, value to the water supply field, potential value as a reference, and overall clarity.

Gemma Charlebois took first-place with her thesis titled, “Microcystin and Microcystis Destruction by Ozone in Drinking Water Treatment: Constraints and Effects,”which argues that advanced oxidation technologies such as ozonation — the best available technologies to treat the toxins associated with algal blooms — might not be as widely effective as we would hope, especially in watersheds where there are high levels of organic carbon. Working with the Region of Waterloo as well as University of Waterloo biologists Heather Roshon and Kirstin Muller, Gemma was able to culture toxin cyanobacteria in a Grand River Water matrix in the lab — something that is challenging to achieve — reliably and successfully. This allowed her to evaluate drinking water treatment technologies and identify potential risks associated with sub-optimal treatment conditions.

“She deserves tremendous credit for her work,” said Monica Emelko, professor of Environmental and Civil Engineering and Director of the Water Science, Technology & Policy Group. “The cross-campus partnerships that we have at the University of Waterloo that encourage interdisciplinary and collaborative research, played a key role in the success and rigour of Gemma’s research.”

Harmful algal blooms can cause a number of negative effects on people and on the environment. It’s a problem that is increasing globally as the production of toxins is linked with climate change. Some of the risks associated with harmful algal blooms include:

• Severe impacts on human health
• Creating dead zones in the water
• Raising treatment costs for drinking water
• Damaging industries that depend on clean water

Second place winner, Andrew Wong’s thesis titled, “Investigating the Enhancement of Biological Filtration with Capping Material Designs and Nutrient Amendments,” focuses on the technologies in water treatment plants, specifically on biological filtration, which can be used to remove natural organic matter (a precursor to disinfection by-products of health concern) from drinking water. In the last several years, there has been an interest in how to enhance this process to maximize biological activity. Andrew investigated the complexities of biological filtration process dynamics and strategies for process optimization, piloting his work at the Region of Waterloo’s Mannheim Water Treatment Plant.

“Complex water challenges require collaboration in order to solve them,” said professor Emelko. “Working with industry partners like the Region of Waterloo is critical to meaningfully tackling these challenges.”

This is the fourth and fifth time that Monica’s group have won a thesis award at the AWWA. Monica’s notes that all five of her students that have won this award, have all worked closely with the Region of Waterloo – a symbol of the excellent partnership between the University and the Region.

“For us to sweep these awards this year, was an incredible honour,” said professor Emelko. “It demonstrates the strength and importance of our partnerships both within and outside of the university. When you have applied and fundamental science working together, meaningful outcomes can happen for science and society.”

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Water Science, Technology and Policy Director Monica Emelko has been working with the province and the municipality since day one to monitor the wildfire’s impact on the Athabasca River.

The story includes an interview by Emelko an, Associate Professor in the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and her team.

“Fort McMurray seeing big spike in water-treatment costs”

By David Thurton , CBC News, Feb. 9, 2017

[…] Both researchers are co-principal investigators in the Southern Rockies Watershed Project, which monitors water quality from its source all the way to the tap.

One problem researchers are already seeing is more dissolved organic carbon from the Athabasca River intake. Carbon reacts with the chlorine and produces byproducts in the water that can be harmful to humans.

Some of these byproducts are suspect carcinogens and some of them are carcinogens

Researchers are bracing for the possible growth of algae in the plant’s untreated water storage ponds. Increased phosphorous and carbon in the water from wildfire debris could create harmful blue-green blooms.

“Some algae produce toxins. They include neurotoxins that affect your nervous system. So when it’s there we have to shut down and that could be problematic.

[…]

Read the full story by David Thurton in CBC News.

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