Nutrients

Senior Research Scientist, PhD

Research Manager

Researcher Scientist, PhD

A newly released Nature paper with several NIVA co-authors highlights a continued management need for reduction of nutrient stress in lakes. It also shows that river management requires more complicated approaches to tackle several stressors simultaneously.

A vast number of new wastewater treatment plants in developing countries has led to an imbalance between phosphorous and nitrogen in surface waters. The result could be excessive growth of potentially poisonous algae with a preference for nitrogen. A new study calls for better nutrient reduction in order to maintain ecosystem biodiversity.

In the BEDREVANN project, we will study the impact of cyanotoxin-contaminated irrigation water in agriculture and the risk to food producers and end users with Akersvannet in Vestfold as a pilot area. Akersvannet is a highly nutrient-rich lake with annual blooms of toxin-producing cyanobacteria. Water from the lake is used to irrigate surrounding agricultural areas where vegetables are largely grown, and this can pose a risk to safe food production.

The national monitoring program "Ecosystem monitoring in coastal waters - ØKOKYST" under the auspices of the Norwegian Environment Agency consists of several sub-programs that are divided into ecoregions. The program is part of the national basic monitoring of the environmental status of coastal waters and aims to monitor and map the environmental status in selected areas along the Norwegian coast.

How are northern ecosystems affected by climate change, and how do different ecosystems affect each other? This 5-year Fram Centre research program aims to provide critical new knowledge related to: (1) Cross-ecosystem climate change impacts; and (2) How to best integrate cross-ecosystem linkages into cohesive management approaches.

Together with NIBIO, we carry out operational monitoring of rivers and lakes in the Morsa water area (Vansjø-Hobølvassdraget).

Plastic pollution in freshwater environments is a pressing global concern due to its ability to accumulate in the environment. The long-term impacts of this pollution on freshwater ecosystems are still to understand. In PATTERN project, we aim to understand how plastics can influence nutrient composition and the natural exchanges in biological information, with a focus on the biofilms colonizing plastic’s surface. We aim to rate the environmental relevance of these processes and to assess the threshold at which plastic pollution disrupts freshwater ecosystem functioning.

Increasing water scarcity is one of the biggest challenges worldwide. The reuse of the effluents of wastewater treatment plants constitutes a significant and constantly available water resource that can be used for purposes such as irrigation. However, municipal and industrial wastewater treatment plants face an increasing amount of emerging pollutants.

SIREN (Integrated system for simultaneous recovery of energy, organics and nutrients and generation of valuable products from municipal wastewater) will develop a system that recovers energy, organics and nutrients from municipal wastewater while simultaneously generating valuable products.

The section for catchment biogeochemistry works to understand how various pollutants are spread in the environment and how they affect the water quality in rivers, lakes, and fjords. Our studies lay the foundation for and support political guidelines and improvements to reduce unwanted environmental impacts.