【SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN December 2019】【ECOLOGY】Biome Boost

        Sewage-treatment changes helped wildlife in an English river

        污水处理的改变帮助了英国河流中的野生动植物。
        Rivers act as Earth’s arteries and veins, providing sustenance and sweeping away waste to keep terrestrial habitats in shape. By that measure, England is unhealthy: a startling 86 percent of its rivers do not meet water-quality standards, posing a risk to wildlife and human health.

        河流就想地球的血管一样，承担着为地球栖息地提供食物供给与废物处理的功能。经过测量，英国是不健康的：让人感到吃惊的是86%的河流中的水都不符合标准，影响着野生动植物和人类的健康。

        A new study offers hope. Invertebrate biodiversity in one Thames River tributary has increased in the past 30 years, thanks to an adjustment in wastewater treatment, scientists at the U.K.’s Center for Ecology & Hydrology have found. “It’s starting to reach levels one might expect to find in a river without any wastewater,” says environmental scientist Andrew Johnson, lead author on the analysis, which appeared in August in Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry.

        英国生态与水文地理中心科学家的一个新的研究为这个问题带来了希望：在泰晤士河支流中无脊柱动物的生物多样性在过去30年中持续增加，这归功于对污水处理的调整。领导此项研究的第一作者环境科学家Andrew Johnson说道：它开始达到人们对河流所期望没有任何废水的水平，这篇研究发布在8月份《环境毒理学与化学》的文章上。

        Invertebrates such as crustaceans, in­ sects and worms are key players in aquatic ecosystems. They shape their environment by digging into riverbeds and filtering water, and they are both predators and prey. These animals also respond quickly to environmental changes, indicating an ecosystem’s health.

        例如甲壳类的无脊柱动物，昆虫和蠕虫是水生生态系统中关键的组成部分。他们通过挖掘河床和过滤水来塑造环境，并且他们既是捕食者又是猎物。这些动物对环境改变所做出了快速的变化，展现了生态系统对生物影响的变化。

        The researchers analyzed data collected by the U.K. Environment Agency between 1977 and 2017 for a 12-kilometer stretch
of the River Ray downstream from a large wastewater treatment plant in the south-western town of Swindon. They found a steady increase in the variety and numbers of invertebrates since June 1991.

        研究人员收集分析了英国环境局1977年至2017年从一个西南城市史云顿的大污水处理厂排出下游的12千米长河流中污染物数据。他们发现，河流中的无脊柱动物的数量和生物多样性从1991年6月就开始增长了。

        That timing coincides with the 1991 European Union Urban Wastewater Directive, which pushed treatment plants to switch from filtration to an activated sludge process that uses microbes to break down contaminants. This dramatically cut the organic matter and toxic ammonia going into rivers— and so invertebrate biodiversity slowly improved, the team concluded.

        在个时间与1991年欧盟污水法案符合。这个法案推动了污水处理厂的发展，它通过活性污垢法使用细菌去分解污染物。这个团队总结出：这大大减少了流入河流中的有机物和有毒氨，并且河流中无脊柱生物多样性得到了缓慢提升。
         “You could liken it to being given a diet of cheeseburgers for 20 years and then switching to a healthy diet,” Johnson says. “Recovery is not instant.”

        Johnson说道：你可以把它看成一直吃了20年的芝士汉堡然后改成吃健康饮食一样，改变不是一瞬间的事，而是一个长期的过程。

        John Sumpter, an ecotoxicologist at Brunel University London, says this increase most likely boosted diversity among larger creatures, too, and that these results probably apply in other places. Still, published studies showing such improvements are rare. “A big problem is that very few countries have the long-term data sets to conduct the analyses required,” he says.

        伦敦布鲁内尔大学的生态毒理学家John Sumpter说道：这个增长更像是提高了生物的多样性，并且生物多样性的增长也会变相的提高其他方面的增长，然而对于这项研究发布的报告仍然比较缺乏。他说道：“这是因为产生了一个大问题：很少有国家有长期的试验数据集用以分析”。

        The new work suggests that “urban rivers in the U.K. are recovering from the gross pollution problems of the industrial era,” says Steve Ormerod, an ecologist at Cardiff University in Wales. But full restoration will require more work and tougher regulations, he adds, noting the growing problem of agricultural pollution: “The basic story of British rivers is one of urban improvement but rural decline.”

        威尔士Cardiff大学的生态学家Steve Ormerod说道：这项新研究表明英国城市从工业时代所产生的污染正在逐渐好转，但需要完全恢复还需要做更多的工作并且严格管理。请注意到日益严重的农业污染问题，这个英国城市河流的改进正在使更多的污染物向农村富集。

        Yet Johnson thinks the River Ray results show a possible path forward. “And maybe,” he says, “wildlife is more robust than we’d thought.” —Prachi Patel

        然而Johnson认为River Ray对污染物处理的结果给他展示了一条可以前进的道路，或许吧，野生动植物可能比我们想象中更加耐受污染。