Organic pollution, Driver of Environmental Change: eDrivers Project for the St. Lawrence System

The data used to characterize organic pollution come from the global cumulative impacts assessment on habitats and available on the NCEAS online data repository.

Annual pesticide use in tonnes (t) was used as a proxy of organic pollution. The data used came from the FAO and gaps in data were modeled using a linear regression between pesticides and fertilizers or agricultural GDP. Dasymetric maps were then used to distribute fertilizer data over the landscape using 2009 data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) at ~500 m resolution and aggregated to watersheds. Diffusive plume models from each watershed pourpoint (e.g. river mouths) were then used to model the distribution and intensity of organic pollution in coastal and marine environments.

It is possible to consult the scientific report of the eDrivers project: Characterizing Exposure to and Sharing Knowledge of Drivers of Environmental Change in the St. Lawrence System in Canada and the additional data. It is possible to consult the application eDrivers.

REFERENCE:

• Halpern, B., Frazier, M., Potapenko, J. et al. Spatial and temporal changes in cumulative human impacts on the world’s ocean. Nat Commun 6, 7615 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms8615