Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

There are increasing concerns over the risks arising from the wide-spread distribution of endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) in surface water. Exposure to EDCs has been linked to a variety of adverse effects in both humans and wildlife. Under a changing climate, higher rainfall and flooding can increase the amount of EDCs in an aquatic environment via runoff and wastewater discharge. Understanding the environmental risk of EDCs in surface water is not only urgently needed but also extremely challenging in Canadian prairie provinces. The development of effective and practical tools and strategies for discerning the impacts of EDCs on prairie watersheds is necessary to ensure the safety of our water supply under changing climatic conditions. In view of these considerations, the proposed research involves the following objectives: (i) characterize the surface water affected by EDCs in prairie provinces of Canada and build a database that combines information about EDCs, receiving environments and related climate change scenarios; (ii) investigate the dynamic distribution and degradation of EDCs in surface water under changing climatic conditions; (iii) analyze the toxicity of EDCs to aquatic organisms through synchrotron-based techniques and determine the transfer of adverse effects within food chains; (iv) develop best management and treatment practices for ensuring the minimum risk of EDCs to prairie water sources under current and future climatic conditions. A set of novel system-characterization methodologies will be proposed to acquire information, analyze the major sources and fate of EDCs, and examine the interactions between EDCs and climate change. The transport of EDCs will be examined to focus on the partitioning among water, sediment, and biota. The toxicity of EDCs to prairie aquatic organisms will be evaluated. Based on the risk assessment results, appropriate management and treatment approaches will be proposed. This research represents a unique contribution to methodologies for supporting environmental management of emerging contaminants under changing climatic conditions. The findings of this study have relevance for policy development in the areas of water quality and climate change. This project will considerably contribute to filling the gaps of technique, regulation and policy in emerging contaminants management for water supply systems in a Canadian municipal context. The study can be used to predict the risk of water supply contamination events.