Toxicology Centre, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.
Integr Environ Assess Manag. 2013 Jul;9(3):380-91. doi: 10.1002/ieam.1352. Epub 2012 Dec 20.
Environmental impacts can manifest themselves in a cumulative manner over very large spatial (watershed) and temporal (decadal) scales. In response to these challenges, scientists have been developing methods that attempt to assess the complex interactions between our environment and the current and future demands of society. This article proposes a framework for quantifying cumulative changes in water quality and quantity and demonstrates its implementation in an entire watershed, the Athabasca River Basin in Alberta, Canada. The Athabasca River Basin is an ideal watershed for this study as it has undergone significant increase in urban and industrial developments that have the potential to impact this aquatic ecosystem. This framework addresses the problems of setting a historical baseline and comparing it to the current state in a quantitative way. This framework also creates the potential for predicting future impacts by creating thresholds specific to the study area. The outcome of this framework is the identification and quantification of specific stressors (dissolved Na, chloride, and sulfate) showing significant change across the entire Athabasca River Basin, as well as the development of thresholds for these parameters. This information can be used in future assessments of proposed development and possible mitigation in the basin.
环境影响可能会在非常大的空间（流域）和时间（十年）尺度上以累积的方式显现出来。为了应对这些挑战，科学家们一直在开发各种方法，试图评估我们的环境与当前和未来社会需求之间的复杂相互作用。本文提出了一个量化水质和水量累积变化的框架，并展示了其在整个流域（加拿大艾伯塔省的阿萨巴斯卡河流域）中的实施情况。阿萨巴斯卡河流域是这项研究的理想流域，因为它经历了城市和工业发展的显著增长，这些增长有可能影响这个水生生态系统。这个框架通过以定量的方式设定历史基线并将其与当前状态进行比较，解决了这个问题。这个框架还通过为研究区域创建特定的阈值，为预测未来的影响创造了潜力。该框架的结果是确定和量化整个阿萨巴斯卡河流域表现出显著变化的特定胁迫因素（溶解的钠、氯和硫酸盐），以及为这些参数制定阈值。这些信息可用于未来对拟议开发项目的评估和该流域可能的缓解措施。
