Milena Fernandes

SA Water · Australian Water Quality Centre

One of the world's largest smelters has been operating in South Australia since 1889, affecting environment and human health. Here we quantified the magnitude of Pb, Zn and Cd emissions from the smelter sequestered in the soil of an adjacent 110 km2 Posidonia australis seagrass meadows. Seagrass core records show that the smelter contaminated the e...

Habitat suitability modelling was used to test the relationship between coastal discharges and seagrass occurrence based on data from Adelaide (South Australia). Seven variables (benthic light including epiphyte shading, temperature, salinity, substrate, wave exposure, currents and tidal exposure) were simulated using a coupled hydrodynamic-biogeoc...

Seagrasses are considered indicators of anthropogenic impact but surprisingly little is known about their temporal and spatial dynamics in impacted seascapes. In this study, we used three decades of Landsat imagery (1988–2018) off the coast of Adelaide, South Australia, to investigate how seagrass cover over 501 km² responds to changes in land-base...

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

Seagrasses are regarded as indicators and first line of impact for anthropogenic activities affecting the coasts. The underlying mechanisms driving seagrass cover however have been mostly studied on small scales, making it difficult to establish the connection to seagrass dynamics in an impacted seascape. In this study, hyperspectral airborne image...

Seagrass restoration has been suggested as a Blue Carbon (BC) strategy for climate change mitigation. For Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) and carbon crediting schemes, BC projects need to demonstrate ‘additionality’, that is enhanced CO2sequestration and/or avoided greenhouse gas emissions following management actions. This typically requ...

Seagrasses are a crucial indicator species of coastal marine ecosystems that provide substratum, shelter, and food for epiphytic algae, invertebrates, and fishes. More accurate mapping of seagrasses is essential for their survival as a long-lasting natural resource. Before reflectance spectra could properly be used as remote sensing endmembers, fac...

Seagrasses are a vulnerable and declining coastal habitat, which provide shelter and substrate for aquatic microbiota, invertebrates, and fishes. More accurate mapping of seagrasses is imperative for their sustainability but is hindered by the lack of data on reflectance spectra representing the optical signatures of individual species. Objectives...

The upper Spencer Gulf in South Australia hosts the world's largest single stream Pb-Zn smelter, which has caused environmental and health issues related to elevated metal concentrations in the surrounding environment. The area also has extensive seagrass meadows, occupying >4000 km². We reconstructed the fluxes of heavy metals over the last ~3000...

Seagrass decline is often related to eutrophication, with sudden and drastic losses attributed to tipping points in nutrient loads. The identification of these threshold loads is an important step in the sustainable management of nutrient discharges. In this study, a novel methodological approach is presented to simulate the spatial and temporal dy...

Accurate simulation of the underwater light climate is a requirement to understanding and predicting the ecological benefits from initiatives to manage land-derived inputs of nutrients and suspended solids to the coast. The goal of this work was to derive an empirical light model to be used in the water quality module of a coupled physical-biogeoch...

Although the public desire for healthy environments is clear‐cut, the science and management of ecosystem health has not been as simple. Ecological systems can be dynamic and can shift abruptly from one ecosystem state to another. Such unpredictable shifts result when ecological thresholds are crossed; that is, small cumulative increases in an envi...

Urbanised coastlines are affected by cumulative impacts from a variety of anthropogenic stressors, but spatial information on the distribution of these stressors at the local scale is scarce, hindering the ability of managers to prioritise mitigation options. This work investigated the spatial footprint of land-based nitrogen discharges to a metrop...

Heavy losses of 6200 ha of seagrass off the Adelaide metropolitan coast since 1949 have had substantial implications for beach management, fisheries and biodiversity. Here, we describe for managers some promising initial trials to develop a cost-effective method to rehabilitate some of these lost seagrasses.

This work investigates the physical marine connectivity between Adelaide's Barker Inlet and Port River system with discharges from a wastewater treatment plant that is located just outside the inlet. Cluster deployments of Lagrangian global positioning system drifters were used to determine the pathways and dispersive properties of currents in the...

The anti-microbial agent triclosan (TCS), and its derivative methyl-triclosan (Me-TCS), are discharged with treated effluents from wastewater treatment plants to receiving environments. We investigated the bioconcentration of TCS and Me-TCS in mussels (Mytilus galloprovincialis) exposed to TCS (100ngL(-1)) for 30days in seawater aquaria (19±2°C) wi...

The definition of the spatial footprint of land-derived nutrient plumes is a key element to the design of initiatives to combat eutrophication in urbanised coastal regions. These plumes, however, are difficult to monitor because of their inherent high-frequency temporal and spatial variability. Biomonitoring with macroalgae provides time-integratio...

Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city in Brazil, is affected by severe pollution episodes and presents a high respiratory cancer incidence in comparison with the rest of the country. To monitor atmospheric pollution during the summer of 1998/1999 and to estimate the impact of organic pollution on public health, we determined the levels of two car...

In this work, we investigated the transport and burial of triclosan and its methylated derivative, in surface sediments near the mouth of Barker Inlet in South Australia. The most likely source of this commonly used bactericide to the area is a wastewater outfall discharging at the confluence of the inlet with marine waters. Triclosan was detected...

The culture of yellowtail kingfish Seriola lalandi in South Australia is one of the most rapidly growing aquaculture sectors in Australia. To date, there is a paucity of information on the environmental impacts of this industry, due to its relatively small size in comparison to other industry sectors. Here, we report on a study examining the respon...

To assess the effects of southern bluefin tuna farming on benthic nutrient cycling, we measured sedimentation rates, porewater nutrients, sedimentary total nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) content, and benthic fluxes at 2 tuna sea-cages and associated control (non-farm) sites in South Australia over the course of a farming season. Sedimentation rate...

The concentrations of dissolved and particulate polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) were monitored in waters of the Rhône River (France) every fortnight for a full calendar year, from June 1994 to May 1995. All flood events occurring over the course of the experiment were sampled at higher frequency to better quantify the impact of these extrem...

Farming of yellowtail kingfish (Seriola lalandi, Valenciennes, 1833) in the coastal waters of Australia is a relatively new aquaculture industry, and little is known about the magnitude of nutrient discharges from individual pens. In this work, we modelled the flow of nitrogen for each of two commercial pens in Fitzgerald Bay, upper Spencer Gulf, S...

Environmental context. The ability to accurately determine the elemental and isotopic composition of soils and sediments has important implications to our quantitative understanding of global biogeochemical cycles. However, the analysis of organic carbon in solid matrices is a time-consuming task that requires the selective removal of carbonates, a...

Farming of wild tuna in coastal areas is a relatively new aquaculture industry and little is known about the magnitude of nutrient discharges to the environment. In this work we present a preliminary model of nitrogen loads from southern bluefin tuna (Thunnus maccoyii) aquaculture in lower Spencer Gulf, South Australia. The model was developed base...

Finfish pens are point sources of dissolved nutrients released from fish metabolism or degradation of solid wastes. Nutrients leaching from uneaten feed and faeces are not usually quantified in mass budgets for these systems, leading to an overestimation of fish retention or deposition to the seabed. In this study, we investigated nutrient leaching...

Farming of southern bluefin tuna in South Australia currently contributes to more than 30% of the value of the aquaculture production in Australia. This study investigated the natural sedimentary setting of the area designated for this important industry in coastal waters off Port Lincoln, and explored the links between the natural distribution of...

Rio de Janeiro is amongst the twenty largest urban agglomerations in the world, with a population of over 11 000 000 inhabitants in the metropolitan area. Atmospheric contamination is derived from industrial, transport and waste burning sources. Industrial plants include two petroleum refineries. Several studies have reported on the effects of air...

Sorption of the endocrine-disrupting chemical 17beta-estradiol (E(2)) from aqueous solutions to goethite, an iron oxide, and the clay minerals kaolinite, illite, and montmorillonite (K and Ca forms) was measured at 25 degrees C. The clay minerals sorbed more E(2) than the oxide, with sorption capacity increasing in the order goethite <or= illite <...

Aromatic and aliphatic fractions of black carbon (BC) solvent extracts were examined by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry to determine how differences in broad chemical and physical features are correlated with the load, composition, "extractability" and bioavailability of organic compounds. Diesel soot, urban dust and chimney soot had concentra...

Sorption of the endocrine-disrupting chemical 17β-estradiol (E2) from aqueous solutions to goethite, an iron oxide, and the clay minerals kaolinite, illite, and montmorillonite (K and Ca forms) was measured at 25°C. The clay minerals sorbed more E2 than the oxide, with sorption capacity increasing in the order goethite ⩽ illite < kaolinite ⪡ montmo...

Scanning electron microscopy, surface area determination, elemental analysis, organic matter extraction and solid-state cross polarization/magic angle spinning and Bloch decay/magic angle spinning 13C nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy were used to investigate distinctive features among carbonaceous combustion residues. Black carbon (BC)...

Polycyclic aromatic and monoaromatic (benzene, toluene and xylene, or BTX) hydrocarbons were monitored in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, during the summer of 1998/1999. The levels of these aromatic chemicals decreased with distance from main roads, indicating mobile sources are the main pollutant emitters in this Latin American city. Benzo[ghi]perylene/in...

The uptake of anthracene from dilute aqueous solutions onto goethite and kaolinite was investigated at 25 degrees C, first in the absence and then in the presence of three benzene carboxylic acids: phthalic acid (benzene-1,2-dicarboxylic acid), trimesic acid (-1,3,5-), and mellitic acid (-1,2,3,4,5,6-). Carboxylic acid concentrations were 0.20, 0.1...

Ground-state diffuse reflectance and laser-induced fluorescence techniques were tested on the evaluation of total polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in unextracted and unfractionated airborne particulate matter. The total particulate PAH content estimated from these methods and from gas-chromatography in air particulate samples collected in th...

Organic carbon (OC) and n-alkanes were investigated in the suspended matter (SM) and surficial sediments of the Arctic Ob and Yenisei Rivers and the adjacent Kara Sea. Organic nitrogen and δ13C values were determined as additional parameters in the sediments. OC and n-alkane concentrations were highly variable in space. This variability was interpr...

PAH contamination levels were determined in the suspended matter of two French rivers, the Seine and the Rhne, and compared to those available for other major European rivers. Hydrodynamic characteristics, such as the amount of suspended matter and the water discharge, appear to strongly influence PAH levels in these systems. Sampling strategies to...

Surficial sediments collected along the Amazon shelf during the November 1991 cruise of the AmasSeds program were analyzed for n-alkanols and 4-desmethyl sterols. Despite the high water column productivity and Amazon River inputs, total concentrations are low (usually < 1 μg/g). Principal component analysis (PCA) indicates that the n-C16 alkanol an...

Sterols, n-alkanols, organic carbon (OC), C/N ratios and carbon isotope data (delta 13C) were investigated in sediments of the urban Capibaribe River estuary, NE Brazil, in order to assess allochthonous and autochthonous sources of organic matter (OM). Sedimentary OC values are high, but C/N ratios and delta 13C data generally fall within the range...

Suspended matter (SM) and surface sediments were analysed for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) throughout the Ob and Yenisei River estuaries and in the Kara Sea in order to evaluate the contamination of Arctic shelves by these two major Siberian rivers. PAH concentrations were extremely low, among the lowest measured up to now in the Arctic r...

Dissolved and particulate PAHs were quantified throughout the Seine River and its estuary. Samples were collected in October 1993, covering a salinity gradient of 0.2‰ to 34.8‰. Two mooring stations were occupied at the river mouth to ascertain the influence of tidal cycles on the dispersal of riverborne PAHs. Total particulate PAH concentrations r...

Dissolved and particulate hydrocarbons of biogenic origin were investigated for the first time in surface waters along the Seine River and its estuary. They comprise n-alkanes (n-ALKs) and diagenetic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Samples were collected in three different sections of the estuary: the riverine zone, the mixing zone, and th...