Nutrient cycling and water quality in human impacted ecosystems
Conveners: Colin McCarter1 and Colin Whitfield2
1School of Earth, Environment & Society, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, L8S 4L8, Email: mccartec@mcmaster.ca
2School of Environment and Sustainability and Global Institute for Water Security, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, S7N 5A2, Email: colin.whitfield@usask.ca
Session Description
Humans are irrevocably modifying the natural world through direct and indirect disturbances. These disturbances alter the biogeochemical and ecohydrological processes that underpin many critical ecosystem services that regulate water quality and nutrient cycling. This session will feature research investigating nutrient cycling and water quality in human impacted ecosystems. We encourage contributions that focus on agricultural, urban, forested, or other ecosystem types across a variety of spatial scales and methodological techniques. Impacts of interest are similarly wide ranging; including, but not limited to, nutrient and/or contaminant loads, land-use change, physical alterations of drainage networks, and climate change. The goal of the session is to bring together new and emerging research that identifies how a variety of human stressors affect nutrient biogeochemistry, and/or how this relates to altered water quality.