Bryan M Spears

UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology | CEH · UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology Bush Estate (Edinburgh)

Recommended Citation: WWQA Ecosystems, 2023. White Paper – Embedding Lakes into the Global Sustainability Agenda. Published by UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology on behalf of the United Nations Environment Programme coordinated World Water Quality Alliance Ecosystems Workstream. 22nd March 2023. ISBN: 978-1-906698-82-9. doi: 10.5281/zenodo.7752982....

Sustainable management of lakes requires us to overcome ecological, economic, and social challenges. These challenges can be addressed by focusing on achieving ecological improvement within a multifaceted, co‐beneficial context. In‐lake restoration measures may promote more rapid ecosystem responses than is feasible with catchment measures alone, e...

A global survey of 179 restoration practitioners spanning 65 countries identified the extent of stakeholder engagement as a key factor determining the success or failure of restoration projects. Lack of support across sectors and for funding, policy, monitoring, governance and knowledge assessment of pressures and their effects were most frequently...

Food systems depend on reliable supplies of phosphorus to fertilize soils. Since 2020, a pandemic, geopolitical disputes, trade wars and escalating fuel prices have driven a >400% increase in phosphorus commodity prices, contributing to the current food crisis. The Russia-Ukraine conflict has disrupted phosphate trade further. Concurrently, phospho...

Freshwater pollution is, together with climate change, one of today’s most severe and pervasive threats to the global environment. Comprehensive and spatially explicit scenarios covering a wide range of constituents for freshwater quality are currently scarce. In this Global Perspective paper, we propose a novel model-based approach for five water...

The dependence of countries on phosphorus fertilisers derived from phosphate rock to maintain crop yields and ensure food security is well established. Yet, exposure of national food systems to constrained reserves of phosphate rock and supply chain complexities still pose risks to farmers’ access to this critical nutrient in many countries. Whils...

Ensuring global food security while halting ecosystem degradation is arguably one of the most fundamental current challenges. As a key component of fertilisers for which there is no substitute, phosphorus plays a central role in this challenge. Food production systems are critically vulnerable to phosphorus supply disruptions and price spikes, whil...

Domesticated livestock and their waste streams are considered a significant source of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) pollution at the global scale; however, the waste generated (excreta) by domesticated cats and dogs, whose global numbers are estimated at 700 million and 900 million, respectively, is not included in any global inventories or model...

In recent years, research on normatively positive social tipping dynamics in response to the climate crisis has produced invaluable insights. In contrast, relatively little attention has been given to the potentially negative social tipping processes that might unfold due to an increasingly destabilized Earth system and to how they might in turn re...

Lakes and ponds experience anthropogenically forced changes that may be non-linear and sometimes initiate ecosystem feedbacks leading to tipping points beyond which impacts become hard to reverse. In many cases climate change is a key driver, sometimes in concert with other stressors. Lakes are also important players in the global climate by ventil...

Globally, climate warming is increasing air temperatures and changing river flows, but few studies have explicitly considered the consequences for lake temperatures of these dual effects, or the potential to manage lake inflows to mitigate climate warming impacts. Using a one-dimensional model, we tested the sensitivity of lake temperatures to the...

Please cite this report as follows: Linda May, Philip Taylor, Stephen Thackeray, Bryan Spears, Iain Gunn, Erica Zaja, Lily Gouldsbrough, Megan Hannah, Miriam Glendell, Zisis Gagkas, Mads Troldborg, Michaela Roberts, Kerr Adams. (2024) Mitigating Climate Change Impacts on the Water Quality of Scottish Standing Waters Report and Appendices. CRW202...

Cite as: UKCEH & HRW, 2023. A rapid assessment of the immediate environmental impacts of the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka Dam, Ukraine. Report prepared by UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology and HR Wallingford for the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) Expert Advisory Call Down Service 2 Lot 4 Rapid Assessment of the Environment...

Assessing habitat and biodiversity loss in active conflict zones is a major challenge1. Independent scientific evidence on wartime impacts is essential to inform the environmental priorities of reconstruction and recovery plans. Such plans are typically developed during the conflict resolution period2. However, evidence to shape biodiversity recove...

Inadequate potassium management jeopardizes food security and freshwater ecosystem health. Potassium, alongside nitrogen and phosphorus, is a vital nutrient for plant growth1 and will be fundamental to achieving the rapid rises in crop yield necessary to sustain a growing population. Sustainable nutrient management is pivotal to establishing sustai...

In the UK, most large reservoirs constructed for public water supply are in upland areas. Many are situated in catchments characterised by organic-rich soils, including peatlands. Although these soils naturally leach large amounts of dissolved organic matter (DOM) to water, the widespread degradation of upland peat in the UK is believed to have exa...

Lakes experience anthropogenically-forced changes that may initiate ecosystem feedbacks, in some cases reaching tipping points beyond which impacts become hard to reverse. Lakes are also important players in the global climate by ventilating a large share of terrestrial carbon back to the atmosphere as greenhouse gases, and will likely provide subs...

Estuaries receive and process a large amount of particulate organic carbon (POC) prior to its export into coastal waters. Studying the origin of this POC is key to understanding the fate of POC and the role of estuaries in the global carbon cycle. Here, we evaluated the concentrations of POC, as well as particulate organic nitrogen (PON), and used...

https://theconversation.com/phosphorus-supply-is-increasingly-disrupted-we-are-sleepwalking-into-a-global-food-crisis-196538

This report sets out the UK’s first comprehensive national phosphorus transformation strategy, based on extensive stakeholder consultation across the UK food system, in addition to economic modelling and biophysical analyses. The UK’s food system is in transition, driven in part by major changes to agricultural policy. It is also under pressure fro...

In the UK most large reservoirs constructed for public water supply are in upland areas and situated in catchments that contain at least some organic-rich soils. Dissolved organic matter (DOM) leaching from these soils imparts a brownish colour to water and raises treatment challenges for the water industry since excessive post-treatment concentrat...

Cities are central to improving natural resource management globally. Instead of reinventing the wheel for each interlinked sustainability priority, we suggest synergising with, and learning from existing net-zero carbon initiatives to explicitly tackle another vital element: phosphorus. To achieve net-zero phosphorus actors must work together to (...

Dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) fluxes from the land to ocean have been quantified for many rivers globally. However, CO2 fluxes to the atmosphere from inland waters are quantitatively significant components of the global carbon cycle that are currently poorly constrained. Understanding, the relative contributions of natural and human-impacted pro...

Solid wastes deposited in the coastal zone that date from an era of lax environmental regulations continue to pose significant challenges for regulators and coastal managers worldwide. The increasing risk of contaminant release from these legacy disposal sites, due to a range of factors including rising sea levels, associated saline intrusion, and...

Robust demonstration case-studies are needed to evaluate whether improvements in ecosystem condition are translated into improvements in ecosystem services. This research is essential for effectively scaling-up nature-based solutions across Europe and providing the evidence to support transformation agendas in society and industries, and ultimately...

Project objectives and research questions The overall aim of this project was to compile and assess the key evidence required to improve our understanding of climate change impacts on the water quality of Scottish standing waters at national, regional and local scales. The project focussed on the interactions between climate change, the drivers...

Innovative methods to combat internal loading issues in eutrophic lakes are urgently needed to speed recovery and restore systems within legislative deadlines. In stratifying lakes, internal phosphorus loading is particularly problematic during the summer stratified period when anoxia persists in the hypolimnion, promoting phosphorus release from t...

As demand for food production continues to rise, it is clear that in order to meet the challenges of the future in terms of food security and environmental sustainability, radical changes are required throughout all levels of the global food system. Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) (a.k.a. indoor farming) has an advantage over conventional...

Managing phosphorus underpins the sustainability of the food system and is vital in achieving future food security. Strategies to deliver phosphorus sustainability include a transition to circular phosphorus value chains, land-use planning approaches that support greater phosphorus use efficiency and a reduction in consumption of animal products. A...

There are abundant opportunities to transition towards more sustainable phosphorus use. Taken collectively, these solutions unlock multiple environmental and societal benefits. Actions must be delivered cooperatively, as part of an integrated plan across sectors and scales. Indeed, coordinated action on phosphorus to support governments, existing c...

Recycling phosphorus-rich organic wastes and manures is critical for phosphorus sustainability and a transition to a more circular economy for phosphorus. Beyond agronomic benefits, the win-wins are numerous, with benefits to society, environment, economy, and business growth. However, to significantly increase phosphorus recycling, education, awar...

Unsustainable phosphorus use is at the heart of many societal challenges. Unsustainable phosphorus use affects food and water security, freshwater biodiversity and human health. Increasing demand for food to support a growing global population continues to drive increases in phosphorus inputs to the food–system, as well as losses from land-based so...

The 'Our Phosphorus Future' project (OPF) responds to the critical need to provide direction from the global phosphorus scientific community to progress sustainable phosphorus use. The OPF project ran from 2017-2021. During this time over 100 scientists and industry experts came together to develop this report. The report identifies the priority is...

Anthropogenic eutrophication caused by excess loading of nutrients, especially phosphorus (P), from catchments is a major cause of lake water quality degradation. The release of P from bed sediments to the water column, termed internal loading, can exceed catchment P load in eutrophic lakes, especially those that stratify during warm summer periods...

The flux of terrigenous organic carbon through estuaries is an important and changing, yet poorly understood, component of the global carbon cycle. Using dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and fluorescence data from 13 British estuaries draining catchments with highly variable land uses, we show that land use strongly influences the fate of DOC across...

Globally, anthropogenic actions of land use change and intensification and deliberate or unintentional species invasions have adversely affected lakes, resulting in widespread loss of benefits to society. In recognition of these impacts, restoration efforts have increased in recent years. Restoration is a challenging and expensive process, however,...

Ecological restoration is essential to sustain the important production, regulation, and cultural services that fresh waters provide. This chapter reviews the success of freshwater restoration actions in the light of current policies, including current understanding on the scale of restoration needed and timescales in recovery. Freshwater restorati...

Interactions between stressors in freshwater ecosystems, including those associated with climate change and nutrient enrichment, are currently difficult to detect and manage. Our understanding of the forms and frequency of occurrence of such interactions is limited; assessments using field data have been constrained as a result of varying data form...

The dissolved organic carbon (DOC) export from land to ocean via rivers is a significant term in the global C cycle, and has been modified in many areas by human activity. DOC exports from large global rivers are fairly well quantified, but those from smaller river systems, including those draining oceanic regions, are generally under-represented i...

Food security and healthy freshwater ecosystems are placed at jeopardy by poor phosphorus management. Scientists are calling for transformation across food, agriculture, waste and other sectors — mobilized through intergovernmental action, which has been missing thus far.

Despite advances in conceptual understanding, single-stressor abatement approaches remain common in the management of fresh waters, even though they can produce unexpected ecological responses when multiple stressors interact. Here we identify limitations restricting the development of multiple-stressor management strategies and address these, brid...

Rising dissolved organic matter (DOM) concentrations, and associated increases in water colour, have posed a potential problem for the UK water industry since the phenomenon was first reported in the early 1990s. Elevated DOM concentrations in raw water are of particular concern in upland catchments dominated by organic soils where DOM production t...

Eutrophication affects many lakes and reservoirs worldwide. It is caused by excessive amounts of nutrients entering waterbodies from their catchments, mainly due to human activity. The main sources of these nutrients are discharges from industry and wastewater treatment systems, and agricultural runoff. The water quality problems caused by eutrophi...

Climate and land-use change drive a suite of stressors that shape ecosystems and interact to yield complex ecological responses, i.e. additive, antagonistic and synergistic effects. Currently we know little about the spatial scale relevant for the outcome of such interactions and about effect sizes. This knowledge gap needs to be filled to underpin...

Steinman and Spears bring together an international cast of experts to summarize the state of knowledge of phosphorus loading and cycling in lakes around the world. In a well crafted treatment of the topic, the book first introduces the problem of P loading, its measurement, driving factors, and mathematical modeling. In the second section, 17 chap...

Loch Leven is a shallow eutrophic lake in the UK with a history of eutrophication problems. Here, we document the response of internal phosphorus cycling within the lake to a reduction in catchment phosphorus load from 5.25 mg total phosphorus (TP) m-2 d-1 (1985) to between 1.44 mg TP m-2 d-1 and 2.39 mg TP m-2 d-1 (1995, 2005, 2015). Since 1989, i...

Barton Broad is a very shallow lowland eutrophic lake, located in the Broads National Park, UK. The lake has been monitored over the last forty years, during which time a series of restoration measures has been undertaken. This started with the control of phosphorus from waste water treatment works (WWTW) to reduce phosphorus input to the lake, fol...

We set out in this book to present a comprehensive assessment of internal phosphorus (P) loading in lakes, drawing on a vast peer reviewed literature as well as long-term data from case studies. Most importantly, our co-authors have imparted hundreds (collectively) of years of expertise in measurement, modelling and management of internal loading a...

Lake eutrophication is a global problem that is being exacerbated by climate change, excess nutrient runoff, and land use alterations. While nutrient inputs to lakes from surrounding watersheds (external loading) have historically received considerable attention, phosphorus inputs (and other elements) generated from within the lake (internal loadin...

The transport of dissolved organic matter (DOM) across the land-ocean-aquatic-continuum (LOAC), from freshwater to the ocean, is an important yet poorly understood component of the global carbon budget. Exploring and quantifying this flux is a significant challenge given the complexities of DOM cycling across these contrasting environments. We deve...

Since 2017, we investigated iDOM in tropical and temperate rivers across Amazonia and Scotland using the next-generation liquid chromatography organic carbon detection – organic nitrogen detection system utilised by Pereira et al. (2014). Monthly sampling of rivers including the Cree, the Clyde and the Forth show evidence for iDOM mobilisation, but...

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/364/6438/eaav5570/tab-e-letters Letter submitted in response to Perino, A., Pereira, H.M., Navarro, L.M., Fernández, N., Bullock, J.M., Ceaușu, S., Cortés-Avizanda, A., van Klink, R., Kuemmerle, T., Lomba, A., Pe’er, G., Plieninger, T., Benayas, J.M.R., Sandom, C.J., Svenning, J.C., Wheeler, H.C., Rewilding C...

We investigated the riverine carbon exports from a two headwater peatland environments in the UK, and examined the potential uncertainty of quantification due to the role of optically “invisible” dissolved organic matter (iDOM). Importantly, our work captured compositional changes of riverine DOM in during an exceptionally dry period and compared t...

The delivery of organic matter (OM) from land to freshwaters constitutes a significant flux within the global carbon cycle, with particularly high OM loading in aquatic systems draining organic carbon rich peatlands. However, the reactivity and therefore the fate of OM within the aquatic continuum is not fully understood. In this study, OM concentr...

Little is known about chemical and ecological recovery following red mud leachate pollution in fresh waters. This deficiency is confounded by a lack of knowledge on the chemical composition of red mud leachate and the changes in composition that occur as a result of interactions with sediments and freshwater organisms during transport through aquat...

About 40 % of European lakes are failing water quality targets for chemistry that have been set under the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD). One of the main causes of this problem is excessive inputs of phosphorus (P) to lakes from their catchments, including those from agricultural sources and wastewater treatment works. This study used WFD monit...

Abstract The Water Framework Directive (WFD) is a pioneering piece of legislation that aims to protect and enhance aquatic ecosystems and promote sustainable water use across Europe. There is growing concern that the objective of good status, or higher, in all EU waters by 2027 is a long way from being achieved in many countries. Through questionn...

The National Trust (NT) is often associated in the public mind with stately homes and tearooms but as the largest private landowner in the UK (250,000 ha) and with over 5 million members, its potential reach as a conservation charity is significant. In recent years, the Trust has consciously reemphasised its role in nature conservation and at the h...

Vanadium (V) is a contaminant which has been long confined to the annals of regulatory history. This follows the reduction of its historical primary source (fossil fuel emissions) since the 1970s (e.g., by 80% in the UK). However, V is quickly becoming an important strategic resource which promises its return to environmental prominence because of...