TY  - JOUR
AU  - Di Lorenzo, T.
AU  - Galassi, D. M. P.
PY  - 2013//
TI  - Agricultural impact on Mediterranean alluvial aquifers: do groundwater communities respond?
JO  - Fundamental and Applied Limnology/Archiv für Hydrobiologie
SP  - 271
EP  - 282
VL  - 182
IS  - 4
PB  - E. Schweizerbart'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung
KW  - alluvial aquifers
KW  - groundwater
KW  - stygobiont
KW  - nitrate
KW  - overexploitation
N2  - In Mediterranean countries agricultural development heavily depends on groundwater availability dueto arid and semi-arid climate and poor surface-water resources. Agriculture represents one of the most relevantpressures which generate impacts in alluvial aquifers by means of fertilizers and pesticides usage and groundwateroverexploitation. Until now, very few studies have addressed the ecological response of groundwater fauna togroundwater contamination and overexploitation due to agricultural practices. We investigated a Mediterraneanalluvial aquifer heavily affected by nitrates contamination and groundwater abstraction stress due to crop irrigation. The aim of this study was to evaluate the sensitivity of groundwater communities to (a) groundwater nitratecontamination, (b) groundwater abstraction due to irrigation practices, and (c) saltwater intrusion. The presentwork suggests that nitrate concentration lower than 150 mg l–1 is not an immediate threat to groundwater biodiversity in alluvial aquifers. This conclusion must be carefully considered in the light of the total lack of knowledgeof the effects of long-term nitrate pollution on the groundwater biota. Moreover, local extinctions of less tolerantspecies, prior to monitoring, cannot be ruled out. Conversely, species abundances in ground water are affected bygroundwater withdrawal, but species richness may be less sensitive. This result is attributable to the disappearanceof saturated microhabitats and to the depletion of fine unconsolidated sediments, reducing the surface availableto bacterial biofilm, which represent the trophic resource for several groundwater invertebrates and where themain aquifer self-purification processes, such as denitrification, take place. Saltwater intrusion seems not to affectgroundwater species at the values measured in this coastal aquifer.
SN  - 1863-9135
UR  - sci-hub.si/10.1127/1863-9135/2013/0398
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1127/1863-9135/2013/0398
N1  - exported from refbase (http://www.uhydro.de/refbase/show.php?record=43), last updated on Tue, 17 Mar 2020 09:28:35 +0100
ID  - DiLorenzo+Galassi2013
ER  -