WATER QUALITY IN THE ANTHROPOCENE: SOLVING THE PROBLEM OF EMERGING, RE-EMERGING, AND RECALCITRANT CONTAMINANTS

摘要

Water is one of the primary life-support systems for the earth and while quantity is known, measured, studied, and mapped at scales from global to the smallest of the hydrologic units, water quality remains elusive and is not studied well enough for us to understand threats, drivers and health risks at any spatial or temporal scale. Water quality equals health, health of our ecosystems, ecosystem services, and communities, but is also a determinant of human health. In this new era of the an-thropocene where the human coupled water cycle is now the system we live within, we must begin a concerted effort toward building the large data sets needed to comprehensively define water quality, degradation, impacts and restoration goals for a sustainable future.