Assessing the ecological impact of banana farms on water quality using aquatic macroinvertebrate community composition

Environmental Science and Pollution Research, Jan 2017

In Costa Rica, considerable effort goes to conservation and protection of biodiversity, while at the same time agricultural pesticide use is among the highest in the world. Several protected areas, some being wetlands or marine reserves, are situated downstream large-scale banana farms, with an average of 57 pesticide applications per year. The banana industry is increasingly aware of the need to reduce their negative environmental impact, but few ecological field studies have been made to evaluate the efficiency of proposed mitigation strategies. This study compared the composition of benthic macroinvertebrate communities up- and downstream effluent water from banana farms in order to assess whether benthic invertebrate community structure can be used to detect environmental impact of banana farming, and thereby usable to assess improvements in management practises. Aquatic invertebrate samples were collected at 13 sites, using kick-net sampling, both up- and downstream banana farms in fast flowing streams in the Caribbean zone of Costa Rica. In total, 2888 invertebrate specimens were collected, belonging to 15 orders and 48 families or taxa. The change in community composition was analysed using multivariate statistics. Additionally, a biodiversity index and the Biological Monitoring Working Party (BMWP) score system was applied along with a number of community composition descriptors. Multivariate analyses indicated that surface waters immediately up- and downstream large-scale banana farms have different macroinvertebrate community compositions with the most evident differences being higher dominance by a single taxa and a much higher total abundance, mostly of that same taxon. Assessment of macroinvertebrate community composition thus appears to be a viable approach to detect negative impact from chemical-intensive agriculture and could become an effective means to monitor the efficacy of changes/proposed improvements in farming practises in Costa Rica and similar systems.

A PDF file should load here. If you do not see its contents the file may be temporarily unavailable at the journal website or you do not have a PDF plug-in installed and enabled in your browser.

Alternatively, you can download the file locally and open with any standalone PDF reader:

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs11356-016-8248-y.pdf

Assessing the ecological impact of banana farms on water quality using aquatic macroinvertebrate community composition

Assessing the ecological impact of banana farms on water quality using aquatic macroinvertebrate community composition Ola Svensson 0 1 2 3 4 Angelina Sanderson Bellamy 0 1 2 3 4 Paul J. Van den Brink 0 1 2 3 4 Michael Tedengren 0 1 2 3 4 Jonas S. Gunnarsson 0 1 2 3 4 0 Sustainable Places Research Institute, Cardiff University , 33 Park Place, Cardiff CF10 3BA , UK 1 Department of Ecology, Environment and Plant Sciences (DEEP), Stockholm University , S-10961 Stockholm, SE , Sweden 2 Responsible editor: Thomas Hein 3 Alterra, Wageningen University and Research , P.O. Box 47, 6700 AA Wageningen, Wageningen , The Netherlands 4 Department of Aquatic Ecology and Water Quality Management, Wageningen University , P.O. Box 47, 6700 AA Wageningen, Wageningen , The Netherlands In Costa Rica, considerable effort goes to conservation and protection of biodiversity, while at the same time agricultural pesticide use is among the highest in the world. Several protected areas, some being wetlands or marine reserves, are situated downstream large-scale banana farms, with an average of 57 pesticide applications per year. The banana industry is increasingly aware of the need to reduce their negative environmental impact, but few ecological field studies have been made to evaluate the efficiency of proposed mitigation strategies. This study compared the composition of benthic macroinvertebrate communities up- and downstream effluent water from banana farms in order to assess whether benthic invertebrate community structure can be used to detect environmental impact of banana farming, and thereby usable to assess improvements in management practises. Aquatic invertebrate samples were collected at 13 sites, using kick-net sampling, both up- and downstream banana farms in fast Costa Rica; Banana production; Benthic macroinvertebrates; Water quality; Monitoring; Risk assessment - flowing streams in the Caribbean zone of Costa Rica. In total, 2888 invertebrate specimens were collected, belonging to 15 orders and 48 families or taxa. The change in community composition was analysed using multivariate statistics. Additionally, a biodiversity index and the Biological Monitoring Working Party (BMWP) score system was applied along with a number of community composition descriptors. Multivariate analyses indicated that surface waters immediately up- and downstream large-scale banana farms have different macroinvertebrate community compositions with the most evident differences being higher dominance by a single taxa and a much higher total abundance, mostly of that same taxon. Assessment of macroinvertebrate community composition thus appears to be a viable approach to detect negative impact from chemical-intensive agriculture and could become an effective means to monitor the efficacy of changes/ proposed improvements in farming practises in Costa Rica and similar systems. Costa Rica is one of the richest countries in the world in terms of biodiversity and considerable effort goes to conservation and protection. Several protected areas, some being wetlands or marine reserves, are however, situated downstream agricultural areas, where the use of agrochemicals is very high (Schreinemachers and Tipraqsa 2012) and run-off into nearby surface waters is of particular concern (Castillo et al. 2006). A major contributor of agrochemicals to the surrounding environment is the large-scale banana production, which receives an average of 57.5 pesticide applications per year as well as 2775 kg/ha of synthetic fertilizers (Bellamy 2013; Bravo et al. 2013). Several of the pesticides used in banana production have been detected in the aquatic environment downstream of banana production areas (Castillo et al. 2006), some in concentrations expected to have acute or chronic toxic effects on aquatic organisms according to toxicity values derived from laboratory toxicity tests (Diepens et al. 2014; AriasAndrés et al. 2016; Rämö et al. 2016). Banana companies are today increasingly aware of the need to reduce their negative environmental impact, and several changes in management practises have resulted in some companies being certified according to one of several certification systems (e.g. Rainforest Alliance and ISO14000). Attempts to reduce environmental impact by farms include the following: sediment traps that are constructed to reduce erosion and capture/retain pesticides adhered to solids; riparian vegetation zones that are planted/left to intercept spray drift, prevent erosion and reduce surface flow and leaching of pesticides; manual chopping of weeds instead of using herbicides; manual injections of nematicides into the banana plant instead of applying soil granular nematicides; and postharvest applications of fungicides using brushes instead of fumigation chambers, thereby reducing the amount of pesticides used. Some of these practises may reduce the negative impact on the environment, but few ecological field studies have been done to evalu (...truncated)


This is a preview of a remote PDF: https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs11356-016-8248-y.pdf

Ola Svensson, Angelina Sanderson Bellamy, Paul J. Van den Brink, Michael Tedengren, Jonas S. Gunnarsson. Assessing the ecological impact of banana farms on water quality using aquatic macroinvertebrate community composition, Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 2017, pp. 1-9, DOI: 10.1007/s11356-016-8248-y