Abstract
The aims of this case study are to assess water quality in a small, forested mountain catchment in the Black Forest, forming part of a National Park and Natura 2000 zone. Field work was carried out in the catchment of the Seebächle torrent, a small headwater basin of the River Acher, a confluent of the Rhine, in Southern Germany between late winter and early summer of 2018. The catchment has a diverse natural setting of water bodies, including springs, torrents, and a lake, and is impacted by anthropogenic activities such as summer tourism, winter sports, two quarries, road traffic, and an isolated construction site. Physio-chemical and bacterial water samples were obtained at 10 measurement sites, including a spring, a lake (Mummelsee), a fountain, artificial and natural snow on and next to a ski run (Seibelseckle), artificial ditches and parking lots draining the ski run, and the Seebächle torrent above two granite mines. Samples were either taken directly on site or analyzed in corresponding hydrology and hospital microbiology laboratories. Water of the Seebächle is oxygen-rich, peaty, and mostly acidic, but the pH varies between 4.1 and 9.5 throughout the catchment, inclining towards acid in the fountain and below the ski run and towards alkaline in the lake. Conductivity is spatially highly variable, reaching the most elevated values below the ski run and its parking lot (149 µS/cm). A high density of bacteria including enterobacteria was detected at nearly all sites. Human pathogenic bacteria were found below and surrounding the ski run, at parking lots draining the ski run, as well as at the lowest site during the mid-spring campaign. They were also detected in the touristically highly frequented lake and in the spring feeding the lake during the end-of-spring campaign. Whilst most physico-chemical parameters followed a similar pattern and fell within good to very good EU drinking water quality status, the lake turbidity levels (19.2 NTU) by far exceeded norms after ice thawing. The most contaminated site in terms of bacteria and turbidity (5.2 NTU), ammonium nitrogen (0.18 mg/L), and total nitrogen (5.06 mg/L) was the spring feeding the Mummelsee draining the construction site of a new restaurant. These field analyses show that the water quality of a virtually uninhabited, natural headwater catchment is strongly interconnected and can degrade both by direct and indirect impacts of overtourism.
Highlights
Water quality is essential for ecosystems and drinking water supply, in particular in headwater catchments [1]
Snowmaking could not be derived from the webcams in March, suitable conditions were available on approx. 15 days
Natural snow could have dominated over artificial snow at the beginning of the winter due to its exceptional character, but from February onwards artificial snow was dominant
Summary
Water quality is essential for ecosystems and drinking water supply, in particular in headwater catchments [1]. Forested catchments play a important role in regulating water quality and quantity, but they are increasingly threatened both by climate and anthropogenic change, even in mountain regions [2]. Within SDG 6, target 6.3 requires nations to improve water quality by reducing pollution, among other things [4]. Requirements include an improvement of water quality where necessary and the prohibition of degradation from a good state [5]. Water quality is assumed to be high in forested catchments, in the low mountains of the Black Forest, Germany [6]. Anthropogenic influences in upland forested catchments in Europe are multiple, including urbanization, roads, dams, mining, ski runs, and mountain bike trails [2,7,8]
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