Anthropogenically Induced Carbon and Nutrient Imbalances and their Implications in Ganga River

Abstract

newline Studies on the effect of human activities on the Ganga River are widely available, data in an ecological perspective are very scarce. This study identifies the following issues in an ecological perspective of the Ganga River: newline1. Lack of easy-to-access, low cost and low variance method for assessment and monitoring of the river; 2. There is no report available on ecosystem feedbacks and their impacts on ecological resilience of the river; 3. Lack of multi-temporal and multi-scale data base for understanding ecosystem responses coupling eutrophy and metal pollution and, 4. No data available on human-driven shifts in C-metabolism at land-water interface and C-source-sink linkages. newlineConsidering these facts, the hypothesis of this study was designed as: newline Human activities cause ecosystem level changes and generate positive feedbacks in the Ganga River; the cumulative effects are far more severe in magnitude than what has been predicted so far. newlineTo test this hypothesis, the detailed objectives considered for the present study were as below: newlineand#61623; To investigate if point- and non-point sources of input stagger the distribution of carbon and nutrients in the Ganga River. newlineand#61623; To explore whether the land-water interface (LWI) provides a stable test bed for accurately predicting changes in river ecosystem responses to human perturbations. newlineand#61623; To answer whether COand#8322; emission coupled extracellular enzyme activities at LWI predicts C-eutrophy and metal pollution in the river. newlineand#61623; To uncover the linkages between benthic hypoxia/anoxia and associated feedbacks with carbon, nutrients and heavy metal cycling. newlineand#61623; To develop ecologically valid empirical relationships between cause and response determinants for quantitative prediction of the ecosystem resilience and magnitude of C-eutrophy and metal pollution