| 1. |
- Henriksson, Patrik John Gustav, et al.
(författare)
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Measuring the potential for sustainable intensification of aquaculture in Bangladesh using life cycle assessment
- 2018
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Ingår i: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. - : Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. - 0027-8424 .- 1091-6490. ; 115:12, s. 2958-2963
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Food production is a major driver of global environmental change and the overshoot of planetary sustainability boundaries. Greater affluence in developing nations and human population growth are also increasing demand for all foods, and for animal proteins in particular. Consequently, a growing body of literature calls for the sustainable intensification of food production, broadly defined as producing more using less. Most assessments of the potential for sustainable intensification rely on only one or two indicators, meaning that ecological trade-offs among impact categories that occur as production intensifies may remain unaccounted for. The present study addresses this limitation using life cycle assessment (LCA) to quantify six local and global environmental consequences of intensifying aquaculture production in Bangladesh. Production data are from a unique survey of 2,678 farms, and results show multidirectional associations between the intensification of aquaculture production and its environmental impacts. Intensification (measured in material and economic output per unit primary area farmed) is positively correlated with acidification, eutrophication, and ecotoxicological impacts in aquatic ecosystems; negatively correlated with freshwater consumption; and indifferent with regard to global warming and land occupation. As production intensifies, the geographical locations of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, acidifying emissions, freshwater consumption, and land occupation shift from the immediate vicinity of the farm to more geographically dispersed telecoupled locations across the globe. Simple changes in fish farming technology and management practices that could help make the global transition to more intensive forms of aquaculture be more sustainable are identified.
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| 2. |
- Henriksson, Patrik J. G., et al.
(författare)
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Unpacking factors influencing antimicrobial use in global aquaculture and their implication for management : a review from a systems perspective
- 2018
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Ingår i: Sustainability Science. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1862-4065 .- 1862-4057. ; 13:4, s. 1105-1120
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Global seafood provides almost 20% of all animal protein in diets, and aquaculture is, despite weakening trends, the fastest growing food sector worldwide. Recent increases in production have largely been achieved through intensification of existing farming systems, resulting in higher risks of disease outbreaks. This has led to increased use of antimicrobials (AMs) and consequent antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in many farming sectors, which may compromise the treatment of bacterial infections in the aquaculture species itself and increase the risks of AMR in humans through zoonotic diseases or through the transfer of AMR genes to human bacteria. Multiple stakeholders have, as a result, criticized the aquaculture industry, resulting in consequent regulations in some countries. AM use in aquaculture differs from that in livestock farming due to aquaculture's greater diversity of species and farming systems, alternative means of AM application, and less consolidated farming practices in many regions. This, together with less research on AM use in aquaculture in general, suggests that large data gaps persist with regards to its overall use, breakdowns by species and system, and how AMs become distributed in, and impact on, the overall social-ecological systems in which they are embedded. This paper identifies the main factors (and challenges) behind application rates, which enables discussion of mitigation pathways. From a set of identified key mechanisms for AM usage, six proximate factors are identified: vulnerability to bacterial disease, AM access, disease diagnostic capacity, AMR, target markets and food safety regulations, and certification. Building upon these can enable local governments to reduce AM use through farmer training, spatial planning, assistance with disease identification, and stricter regulations. National governments and international organizations could, in turn, assist with disease-free juveniles and vaccines, enforce rigid monitoring of the quantity and quality of AMs used by farmers and the AM residues in the farmed species and in the environment, and promote measures to reduce potential human health risks associated with AMR.
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| 3. |
- Nyberg, Oskar, et al.
(författare)
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Identifying mismatches in the classification of toxic emissions and potentials to gap-fill characterization factors in agricultural LCAs
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is vital for evaluating environmental impacts throughout the value chain of a product, including toxicity in freshwater ecosystems and human health. Several methodologies to characterize toxicity of chemicals have emerged over time, generating an increasing number of characterized chemicals. Yet, evaluating toxicological impacts in agri-food LCA studies poses significant challenges. LCA data inventories are dynamic, lack uniformity, and may not encompass all relevant chemical attributes. Additionally, widely-used LCA software tools often lack completeness checks of available characterizations, potentially resulting in underestimations of toxicity impacts within value chains.Our study evaluates agri-food LCA studies, revealing significant underestimations of toxicological impacts due to missing characterization factors, especially concerning pesticide usage, highlighting the need for robust toxicological characterizations to support certification.We also explore the use of computational quantitative structure-activity relationship models to predict missing toxicological characterizations. However, challenges arise from these predictions, offering less reliable results due to complex toxic mechanisms and limited empirical data availability. We also scrutinize the limitations of applying generic characterization factors for pesticide groups.We propose criteria for LCA software developers to minimize the underestimation of toxicological impacts and boost transparency in studies and recommend to include completeness checks, avoiding generic characterization factors, and flagging chemicals without corresponding characterization factors.
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| 4. |
- Polazzo, Francesco, et al.
(författare)
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Combined effects of heatwaves and micropollutants on freshwater ecosystems : Towards an integrated assessment of extreme events in multiple stressors research
- 2022
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Ingår i: Global Change Biology. - : Wiley. - 1354-1013 .- 1365-2486. ; 28:4, s. 1248-1267
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Freshwater ecosystems are strongly influenced by weather extremes such as heatwaves (HWs), which are predicted to increase in frequency and magnitude in the future. In addition to these climate extremes, the freshwater realm is impacted by the exposure to various classes of chemicals emitted by anthropogenic activities. Currently, there is limited knowledge on how the combined exposure to HWs and chemicals affects the structure and functioning of freshwater ecosystems. Here, we review the available literature describing the single and combined effects of HWs and chemicals on different levels of biological organization, to obtain a holistic view of their potential interactive effects. We only found a few studies (13 out of the 61 studies included in this review) that investigated the biological effects of HWs in combination with chemical pollution. The reported interactive effects of HWs and chemicals varied largely not only within the different trophic levels but also depending on the studied endpoints for populations or individuals. Hence, owing also to the little number of studies available, no consistent interactive effects could be highlighted at any level of biological organization. Moreover, we found an imbalance towards single species and population experiments, with only five studies using a multitrophic approach. This results in a knowledge gap for relevant community and ecosystem level endpoints, which prevents the exploration of important indirect effects that can compromise food web stability. Moreover, this knowledge gap impairs the validity of chemical risk assessments and our ability to protect ecosystems. Finally, we highlight the urgency of integrating extreme events into multiple stressors studies and provide specific recommendations to guide further experimental research in this regard.
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| 5. |
- Roth, Sabrina K., et al.
(författare)
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Multiple stressor effects of a heatwave and a herbicide on zooplankton communities : Implications of global climate change
- 2022
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Environmental Science. - : Frontiers Media SA. - 2296-665X. ; 10
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Aquatic ecosystems are exposed to pesticides through various pathways such as spray-drift, agricultural runoff, and chemical spills. Understanding the impact of pesticides on freshwater ecosystems requires not only understanding how pesticides affect aquatic organisms but also knowledge of their interactions with other stressors, such as those related to global climate change. Heatwaves are extended periods of temperature increase relative to the climatological mean. They are increasing in frequency and magnitude and pose an emerging threat to shallow freshwater ecosystems. In this study, we evaluated the single and combined effects of the herbicide terbuthylazine and a simulated heatwave on freshwater zooplankton communities using indoor microcosms. Terbuthylazine was applied at an environmentally relevant concentration (15 µg/L). The heatwave consisted of an increase of 6°C above the control temperature for a period of 7 days. When applied individually, the heatwave increased the total abundance of zooplankton by 3 times. The terbuthylazine exposure led to an indirect effect on the zooplankton community structure, reducing the relative abundance of some taxa. The combination of the heatwave and terbuthylazine had no significant impact on the zooplankton community, indicating additive effects dominated by the herbicide. The interaction between the two stressors increased chlorophyll-a concentrations and apparently changed the structure of the phytoplankton community, which may have benefitted cyanobacteria over green algae. Overall, this study shows that understanding the effects of chemical and non-chemical stressors on aquatic communities remains a challenging task. Further studies should be conducted to improve our mechanistic understanding of multiple stressor interactions at different levels of biological organisation.
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| 6. |
- Wilkinson, John L., et al.
(författare)
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Pharmaceutical pollution of the world's rivers
- 2022
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Ingår i: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. - : Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. - 0027-8424 .- 1091-6490. ; 119:8
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Environmental exposure to active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) can have negative effects on the health of ecosystems and humans. While numerous studies have monitored APIs in rivers, these employ different analytical methods, measure different APIs, and have ignored many of the countries of the world. This makes it difficult to quantify the scale of the problem from a global perspective. Furthermore, comparison of the existing data, generated for different studies/regions/continents, is challenging due to the vast differences between the analytical methodologies employed. Here, we present a global-scale study of API pollution in 258 of the world's rivers, representing the environmental influence of 471.4 million people across 137 geographic regions. Samples were obtained from 1,052 locations in 104 countries (representing all continents and 36 countries not previously studied for API contamination) and analyzed for 61 APIs. Highest cumulative API concentrations were observed in sub-Saharan Africa, south Asia, and South America. The most contaminated sites were in low- to middle-income countries and were associated with areas with poor wastewater and waste management infrastructure and pharmaceutical manufacturing. The most frequently detected APIs were carbamazepine, metformin, and caffeine (a compound also arising from lifestyle use), which were detected at over half of the sites monitored. Concentrations of at least one API at 25.7% of the sampling sites were greater than concentrations considered safe for aquatic organisms, or which are of concern in terms of selection for antimicrobial resistance. Therefore, pharmaceutical pollution poses a global threat to environmental and human health, as well as to delivery of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
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