Latest news with #UniversityofWesternSydney
News.com.au
4 days ago
- Health
- News.com.au
High levels of pollutants found in sewage discharge running into Sydney's drinking water
Sydney's drinking water could be at risk of nutrient pollution from effluent discharged at sewage treatment plants. Researchers have raised the alarm over the quality of effluent discharged into waterways that run into Sydney's main drinking water after high levels of pollutants were identified. University of Western Sydney researchers studied how treated effluent discharged from five sewage treatment plants across NSW affected water quality in the Warragamba Dam catchment. The dam is Sydney's main water supply, providing 95 per cent of drinking water to 5.5 million people. The study found levels of nitrogen and phosphorous up to 10 times the recommended Water NSW catchment river guidelines. Researchers are calling for authorities to adopt best practice to remove nutrients from effluent before a crisis occurs. A WaterNSW spokesperson said in a statement it used advanced monitoring technology to identify the best quality water in Warragamba to supply to Sydney Water for treatment and distribution. 'When blue green algae (BGA) does occur, it can be managed using Warragamba's multi-level offtake capacity, which can select water from various depths to avoid the BGA.' It said Warragamba 'rarely' experienced problematic levels of BGA, with the most serious outbreak in 2007. 'Importantly, no unusual spike in nutrient levels that could be attributed to sewage treatment plants is being detected,' the spokesperson said. University of Western Sydney chief scientist Ian Wright said it was not a disaster right now but they were raising the alarm to watch nutrient levels before a crisis occurred. 'We need to act sooner rather than later to give it the appropriate investment to look after this incredibly invaluable natural environment,' he said. 'As more and more people move in the standard of sewage treatment should be absolutely the best possible and at the moment, our work shows that it isn't.' Dr Wright said sewage infrastructure was something most people did not think about but if it failed to keep up with a rising population then there could be catastrophic problems down the track. 'Nutrients and algae go together, highly elevated nutrients are basically liquid plant food and algae are plants, so they can grow out of control,' he said. 'We had some very big fish kills in western NSW about three years ago, and a lot of that was triggered by blue green algae blooms.' Nutrient pollution can be toxic to human health and can be particularly harmful to infants if drinking water is contaminated, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) regulates and reviews the licence that sewage treatment plants (STPs) operate under across NSW every five years. A NSW EPA spokesman said each licence included enforceable limits on pollutants that were tailored to the plant's design, capacity, and local environmental conditions. 'All licences are reviewed at least every five years to ensure they remain fit for purpose, reflect changes such as population growth and available technology and continue to meet environmental and community expectations,' a spokesman said. 'Sewage treatment plants are required to have effective nutrient removal systems. 'Where upgrades are needed — such as at Mittagong STP — the EPA works closely with councils and agencies to ensure improvements are delivered.' Dr Wright said the different agencies that manage water and sewage plants needed to meet met much sooner. 'In many cases, that isn't what happens often … what often occurs is something really bad happens, and then there's an inquiry, after the fact, so we're trying to get ahead of that,' he said.
Hindustan Times
14-06-2025
- Science
- Hindustan Times
Wood omens: What will the forests of the future look like?
It's a bit like a dystopian forest fable. Some trees are quietly preparing for the climate crisis, with a little human help. They are doing this by leveraging networks with fungi and bacteria; they are entering into standoffs with certain kinds of microbes. Results are mixed but, in some cases, promising. In experiments underway around the world, trees are essentially being introduced to atmospheric conditions that are expected to prevail by 2050. After that point, researchers admit, the Amazon rainforest could be on its way to becoming a savannah or arid grassland. If that happens, it is hard to say what might become of the world's trees (or humans and other life forms). Alternately, we may have mended our ways and be on our way to mending our world by then. So the current experiments are conducted in a spirit of scientific inquiry, readiness, and hope. Here's how they are going. Old oak trees: The UK In a quiet forest on the outskirts of Birmingham is a patch of 180-year-old oak trees that have been transported to the future. Across six experimental plots, eight-storey-high pipes supported by metal towers release air infused with carbon-dioxide above the canopy, elevating local concentrations of CO2 by 40%, to match the levels this region is expected to contain by 2050. 'Traditionally, it's been thought that trees cannot adjust to changing atmospheric composition because they are 'stuck in their ways' and 'locked into' a closed cycling of nutrients with the soil,' says Robert MacKenzie, an atmospheric scientist and director of the Birmingham University Institute of Forest Research (BIFoR), which is conducting the experiment. Over the course of seven years, the researchers have found that, in this instance, this simply isn't true. The trees have responded to higher CO2 levels by raising their carbon-dioxide uptake by 20%, and logging a 10% increase in annual woody growth. This growth of trunk, root and branch helps them sequester more of the carbon in the air. In a surprise discovery, BIFoR researchers also found that microbes in the bark could absorb significant quantities of methane, a climate benefit of trees not previously known (and a discovery that made global news last July). The secret of the forest response appears to be a partnership with soil organisms such as fungi and bacteria, which absorb some of the pollutants and return nutrients to the trees, in exchange for the sugars and other food they cannot make themselves. In an additional benefit, it turned out that the trees bounced back better after a heat wave. The high carbon levels and water-use efficiency helped them resume full-scale photosynthesis faster than a control group of untouched oaks nearby. In Australia, researchers at the University of Western Sydney have been conducting Eucalyptus Free Air Carbon-Dioxide Enrichment or EucFACE trials since 2012. This 'lab' consists of 160 million hectares of eucalyptus-dominated forest in the Cumberland Plain. The mission is to try to predict the effects of rising atmospheric CO2 levels on such an ecosystem. The results have not been heartening, so far. For one thing, elevated CO2 levels caused a significant decline in the populations of arthropods such as spiders and insects, which serve a crucial pest-control and nutrient-cycling function for these trees. Adding to the crisis, in the nutrient-thin soil of this region, the eucalyptus trees' symbiotic relationship with microbes appeared to collapse. Despite the trees' desperate pleas for phosphorus — in the form of more and more carbon released into the soil to feed the microbes — the microbes withheld the crucial nutrient for their own use, 'leaving Eucalyptus trees with limited nutrition,' Kristine Crous, a senior lecturer at Western Sydney University, said in a statement. This is important information because current climate models account for a boost in forest growth globally to help mitigate climate change. As MacKenzie of BIFoR puts it too, for any climate model to be even reasonably accurate, researchers will need a clearer idea of the role trees can be expected to play. Lessons learnt in the Amazon: Brazil AmazonFACE in Brazil began in 2022. This rainforest is nearing its tipping point, by some estimates (it has passed that point, by others). This means it either cannot, or soon won't be able to, regenerate fast enough to retain its character as a rainforest. The factors that have tipped it over include, of course, widespread deforestation, mining activity, the pollution of its land, air and rivers, and global warming. It is estimated that, by 2050, this massive lung of the planet, spread across 6.7 million sq km (making it more than twice the size of India) will have begun its transition to the arid grasslands of a savannah. The 10-year AmazonFACE project, funded by research agencies in Brazil and the UK and coordinated by the government of Brazil's National Institute of Amazonian Research (INPA) and the University of Campinas, is the first such experiment in a tropical forest. It covers more than 400 tree species. It is fundamentally an attempt to better understand this forest before it is lost. Flourishing pines: USA Some of the earliest pollution-adaptation studies in the world were conducted in the US. In 1996, a Free Air Carbon-Dioxide Enrichment or FACE test was conducted on a set of 3,700 pine trees in the 7,000-acre Duke Forest, owned and managed by Duke University (whose main campus is spread across 9,000 acres). The young trees responded to increased atmospheric CO2 by absorbing more of it. Only large-field manipulation experiments, however, can monitor the impact of increased carbon-dioxide on the ecosystem as a system, including soil composition and insect populations, says MacKenzie of BIFoR. It takes many years to see the effect averaged over different growing seasons as it gets hotter, drier, cooler and wetter, at different times of year. 'Ideally, this kind of study should have started, around the world, decades ago,' MacKenzie says.
The Age
18-05-2025
- Lifestyle
- The Age
As the only child of immigrants, I know the discomfort of moving into the middle class
I'll never forget the feeling of awe – and acute discomfort – the first time I walked into The Age 's newsroom. I was 22 and, for as long as I could remember, had wanted to work with the big (news) wigs in town. After two blissful and terrifying weeks working my butt off, I was asked to stay for another (I readily agreed), and eventually landed a permanent job. Little did I know how much coming in as an employee, and no longer an intern, would make me feel like a fish out of water. Yes, I had a degree from one of Australia's best universities, but I was still living in an outer western suburb, which felt like a world away. Conversations revolved around the inner north and south, with high-profile journalists I'd read for years talking about their weekends at book readings and music festivals, dining at new restaurants or checking out museums. Unlike most media professionals, I don't come from an English-speaking background, and while my working-class Polish roots have equipped me to fight and never give up, they didn't expose me to the world of theatre, musicals, overseas travel and multicultural cuisines. While in some ways this was my dream life, it still felt out of reach because I was a class migrant. Loading In an article for The Conversation, UK researchers Dr Madeline Wyatt and Samantha Evans found that people who experience social mobility through education often 'felt under pressure to change mannerisms, adjust their accents and conceal behavioural habits to fit into a workplace'. As one participant in their 2022 study said: 'The [work] culture is very middle class, where it might be that you can quote Latin, that you drink wine rather than beer, that you socialise in a certain way.' This kind of social mobility also tends to affect family dynamics. In Australia, we like to pretend that class doesn't exist or, at the very least, matter all that much. But as Dr Alexandra Coleman from the University of Western Sydney points out, education has become a dominant hope for a good life. Take, for example, riot police recently being called to manage unruly crowds at Sydney's Canterbury Racecourse, where selective school exams were being held, and unruly parents jostled for their children to enter the test and, by extension, a better life. While I have learnt to 'pass', the natural trappings of wealth and comfort are easy for us outsiders to recognise if you know the signs. I once dated a guy whose dinner table guests included famous playwrights and political figures, and who asked me, 'Three prime ministers came out of my school. How many came out of yours?'
Sydney Morning Herald
18-05-2025
- Lifestyle
- Sydney Morning Herald
As the only child of immigrants, I know the discomfort of moving into the middle class
I'll never forget the feeling of awe – and acute discomfort – the first time I walked into The Age 's newsroom. I was 22 and, for as long as I could remember, had wanted to work with the big (news) wigs in town. After two blissful and terrifying weeks working my butt off, I was asked to stay for another (I readily agreed), and eventually landed a permanent job. Little did I know how much coming in as an employee, and no longer an intern, would make me feel like a fish out of water. Yes, I had a degree from one of Australia's best universities, but I was still living in an outer western suburb, which felt like a world away. Conversations revolved around the inner north and south, with high-profile journalists I'd read for years talking about their weekends at book readings and music festivals, dining at new restaurants or checking out museums. Unlike most media professionals, I don't come from an English-speaking background, and while my working-class Polish roots have equipped me to fight and never give up, they didn't expose me to the world of theatre, musicals, overseas travel and multicultural cuisines. While in some ways this was my dream life, it still felt out of reach because I was a class migrant. Loading In an article for The Conversation, UK researchers Dr Madeline Wyatt and Samantha Evans found that people who experience social mobility through education often 'felt under pressure to change mannerisms, adjust their accents and conceal behavioural habits to fit into a workplace'. As one participant in their 2022 study said: 'The [work] culture is very middle class, where it might be that you can quote Latin, that you drink wine rather than beer, that you socialise in a certain way.' This kind of social mobility also tends to affect family dynamics. In Australia, we like to pretend that class doesn't exist or, at the very least, matter all that much. But as Dr Alexandra Coleman from the University of Western Sydney points out, education has become a dominant hope for a good life. Take, for example, riot police recently being called to manage unruly crowds at Sydney's Canterbury Racecourse, where selective school exams were being held, and unruly parents jostled for their children to enter the test and, by extension, a better life. While I have learnt to 'pass', the natural trappings of wealth and comfort are easy for us outsiders to recognise if you know the signs. I once dated a guy whose dinner table guests included famous playwrights and political figures, and who asked me, 'Three prime ministers came out of my school. How many came out of yours?'
