CPUT 2024 : Urbanisation Presents Unique Challenges To Aquatic life
ON POINT: Prof Bryan Brooks believes the urban water cycle must enjoy greater prominence because 70% of the world’s population will live in cities by 2050.Abigail Calata
Fresh water fish with antidepressants embedded in their plasma is a reality according to a visiting professor from America.
Bryan Brooks, a distinguished professor in Environmental Science and Biomedical Studies from the Baylor University in Waco, Texas, presented a public lecture calling for more collaboration between academic disciplines to tackle the complex challenges presented by an increasingly urbanised world.
“An urban water cycle is the new normal. With the concentration of people in cities unlike any other time in human history, we are concentrating the resources they use: water, food, energy. We’re also increasing their access to chemicals. This is occurring at the same time that 80% of sewerage goes untreated,” explains Brooks.
His lecture, titled Perspectives on Intersections of Urbanization, Food Safety and Water Security, revolved around efforts to achieve the United Nation’s Global Goals for Sustainable Development centred on environmental issues.
He highlighted the plight of small fish called fat head minnows that live in a river downstream from a city in the United States. The concentration of the antidepressant Zoloft in these fish exceeds the “human internal therapeutic plasma dose” and is changing the fish’s behaviour making them more vulnerable to predators.
According to Brooks current models that predict the extent of pharmaceutical environmental contaminants are inadequate “to anticipate their risk to people and ecosystems. We can’t afford to be isolationist and reductionist in our approaches to such complex problems. We need a multi-disciplinary, more systems-based approach if we are to solve them,” he adds.
“An urban water cycle is the new normal. With the concentration of people in cities unlike any other time in human history, we are concentrating the resources they use: water, food, energy. We’re also increasing their access to chemicals. This is occurring at the same time that 80% of sewerage goes untreated,” explains Brooks.
His lecture, titled Perspectives on Intersections of Urbanization, Food Safety and Water Security, revolved around efforts to achieve the United Nation’s Global Goals for Sustainable Development centred on environmental issues.
He highlighted the plight of small fish called fat head minnows that live in a river downstream from a city in the United States. The concentration of the antidepressant Zoloft in these fish exceeds the “human internal therapeutic plasma dose” and is changing the fish’s behaviour making them more vulnerable to predators.
According to Brooks current models that predict the extent of pharmaceutical environmental contaminants are inadequate “to anticipate their risk to people and ecosystems. We can’t afford to be isolationist and reductionist in our approaches to such complex problems. We need a multi-disciplinary, more systems-based approach if we are to solve them,” he adds.