環境問題：湿地帯を新たに形成したらどうだろう…？

　汚水処理施設の不備からなまのままの汚物をたれ流したりしてた英国某地方。それで自然環境が悪化しては観光もダメになるし、そもそも地域住民の健康も危うい。農業排水もなかなか―というか最大の問題の一つだ。

BBC The UK's rivers are riddled with sewage pollution – new wetlands could help clean them up 5 July 2024
By Shaoni Bhattacharya

　そこで汚水処理の経過を考えてみよう。微生物で処理し、濾過して流す。それは自然で言えば湿地帯が担っている機能だ。では湿地帯を再生したら…？

「As effluent from sewage works and agricultural pollution flow freely into rivers, researchers and local citizens are urgently seeking to clean up the UK's waterways. New wildlife-rich wetlands could be an answer.」

「Just a few miles inland from the rolling sand dunes of Norfolk's coastline and the picturesque seaside town of Cromer, vegetation and wildlife in the upper River Mun were suffering. In the lake called the Little Broad, into which its waters flowed, fish were dying.

The cause, it turned out, was sewage pollution. The dumping of raw sewage in waterways is a widespread problem across the UK. The amount of raw sewage spilling into England's rivers and seas doubled in 2023, with 3.6 million hours of spills compared with 1.75 million hours the year before, according to the UK's Environment Agency.」

「Sewage pollution can upset aquatic ecosystems, harming wildlife and threatening human health as the pathogens it spreads in the water can cause infections.」

「Wetlands are a "very effective way to fine-tune the water before it goes into a river," says Tanja Radu, an environmental engineer at Loughborough University in the UK whose research interests include wastewater treatment.」

　いや、いいアイディアなのだ。高機能な汚水処理施設がいったいどれほどの面積の湿地帯に匹敵するかという問題があるが。とはいえ多少なりと湿地帯を増やせば、そのぶん野生生物の生息可能数も増え、全体としてシステムは健全化する。

　…遅きに失したかもしれないが、まあやらんよりやったほうがいいよなあと、ものすごい長文なので差し当たりメモのみ。