Günther Grill

• Phd, Geography
• PostDoc Position at McGill University

Pharmaceuticals and household chemicals are neither fully consumed nor fully metabolized when routinely used by humans, thereby resulting in the emission of residues down household drains and into wastewater collection systems. Since treatment systems cannot entirely remove these substances from wastewaters, the contaminants from many households co...

Pharmaceuticals and household chemicals are neither fully consumed nor fully metabolized when routinely used by humans, thereby resulting in the emission of residues down household drains and into wastewater collection systems. Since treatment systems cannot entirely remove these substances from wastewaters, the contaminants from many households co...

As governments and non-state actors strive to minimize global warming, a primary strategy is the decarbonization of power systems which will require a massive increase in renewable electricity generation. Leading energy agencies forecast a doubling of global hydropower capacity as part of that necessary expansion of renewables. While hydropower pro...

The Amazon Basin features a vast network of healthy, free-flowing rivers, which provides habitat for the most biodiverse freshwater fauna of any basin globally. However, existing and future infrastructure developments, including dams, threaten its integrity by diminishing river connectivity, altering flows, or changing sediment regimes, which can i...

The main objective of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) is to remove pathogens, nutrients, organics, and other pollutants from wastewater. After these contaminants are partially or fully removed through physical, biological, and/or chemical processes, the treated effluents are discharged into receiving waterbodies. However, since WWTPs cannot rem...

This is the first national-scale prioritization of Nepalese Rivers based on environmental, socio-cultural, and livelihood services they provide.

The fragmentation of free-flowing rivers (FFRs) through major infrastructure development remains a pivotal threat to global freshwater biodiversity. More than 3400 large hydropower dams (>1 MW) are either planned or under construction, posing threats to freshwater megafauna (i.e., freshwater animals that can reach 30 kg). Here, we investigate the g...

The main objective of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) is to remove contaminants such as pathogens, nutrients, and organic and other pollutants from wastewaters using physical, biological and/or chemical processes prior to discharge into receiving waterbodies. However, since WWTPs cannot remove all contaminants, they inevitably represent concent...

• This study aimed to develop an integrated analytical framework to identify candidate sites for surface water protection that is applicable at broad scales and in data scarce regions, using Zambia as a case study. • In the Zambian Water Resources Management Act of 2011, Water Resource Protection Areas are defined as areas where special measures ar...

https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU21/EGU21-9277.html

Approximately one-third of long rivers remain free-flowing, and rivers face a range of ongoing and future threats. In response, there is a heightened call for actions to reverse the freshwater biodiversity crisis, including through formal global targets for protection. The Aichi Biodiversity Targets called for the protection of 17% of inland water...

Non-technical summary There has been a long history of conflicts, studies, and debate over how to both protect rivers and develop them sustainably. With a pause in new developments caused by the global pandemic, anticipated further implementation of the Paris Agreement and high-level global climate and biodiversity meetings in 2021, now is an oppor...

HydroSHEDS is a well-established database for large scale hydro-ecological research and applications worldwide. The first version was introduced in 2008 and offers global digital hydrographic information including river network and catchment boundary delineation at multiple scales. It is widely used in hydrological modelling and applications in a b...

The HydroATLAS database provides a standardized compendium of descriptive hydro-environmental information for all watersheds and rivers of the world at high spatial resolution. Version 1.0 of HydroATLAS offers data for 56 variables, partitioned into 281 individual attributes and organized in six categories: hydrology; physiography; climate; land co...

An Amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

Free-flowing rivers (FFRs) support diverse, complex and dynamic ecosystems globally, providing important societal and economic services. Infrastructure development threatens the ecosystem processes, biodiversity and services that these rivers support. Here we assess the connectivity status of 12 million kilometres of rivers globally and identify th...

The contamination of freshwater systems arises in many river basins due to industrialization and population growth, posing risks to ecosystems and human health. Despite these concerns, the fate and potential impact of many emerging pollutants are currently unknown, especially when the compounds are released into surface waters from populations dist...

Lakes are key components of biogeochemical and ecological processes, thus knowledge about their distribution, volume and residence time is crucial in understanding their properties and interactions within the Earth system. However, global information is scarce and inconsistent across spatial scales and regions. Here we develop a geo-statistical mod...

Supplementary Figures 1-6, Supplementary Tables 1-5, Supplementary Discussion and Supplementary References.

Chemicals released into freshwater systems threaten ecological functioning and may put aquatic life and the health of humans at risk. We developed a new contaminant fate model (CFM) that follows simple, well-established methodologies and is unique in its cross-border, seamless hydrological and geospatial framework, including lake routing, a critica...

Global hydropower capacity is projected to approximately double from the 2010 installed capacity of 1,000 gigawatts (GW). This expansion would require a dramatic increase in the number of hydropower dams in river basins around the world, including many basins that still have natural, free-flowing rivers. Although hydropower can play an important ro...

The global number of dam constructions has increased dramatically over the past six decades and is forecast to continue to rise, particularly in less industrialized regions. Identifying development path-ways that can deliver the benefits of new infrastructure while also maintaining healthy and productive river systems is a great challenge that requ...

Abstract Urban growth is increasing the demand for freshwater resources, yet surprisingly the water sources of the world's large cities have never been globally assessed, hampering efforts to assess the distribution and causes of urban water stress. We conducted the first global survey of the large cities’ water sources, and show that previous glob...

Despite significant recent advancements, global hydrological models and their input databases still show limited capabilities in supporting many spatially detailed research questions and integrated assessments, such as required in freshwater ecology or applied water resources management. In order to address these challenges, the scientific communit...