Effluent and Seawater Sampling Data from Australian Wastewater Outfalls

Data from a project assessing the ecological effect of coastal wastewater treatment plant outfalls in Australia. The record describes wastewater and seawater sampling results from outfalls in South Australia and New South Wales. The work focused on nutrients, metals, antibiotics, PFAS, and microplastics.

Use Cases

• Compare contaminant retention between shallow, retentive environments and deep, dispersive ones based on the described South Australia and New South Wales outfall sites.
• Analyze concentrations of traditional pollutants like nutrients and metals in treated effluent and receiving seawater.
• Study contaminants of emerging concern, specifically antibiotics, PFAS, and microplastics, in coastal marine environments.
• Assess the ecological impact of wastewater outfalls in different coastal settings as described in the project scope.

Strengths

• Focuses on five specific contaminant groups identified as highly important by water quality managers.
• Provides a comparative study between two distinct coastal environments: shallow/retentive and deep/dispersive.
• Data is part of a larger National Environmental Science Program (NESP) Marine and Coastal hub project.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to the specific Australian outfall sites studied.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network

Collection Method

Treated effluent, seawater, and marine sediments were collected from wastewater treatment plant outfalls.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-28 02:46:46.747434; freshness should be verified.

Geography

South Australia (Glenelg & St Kilda) and New South Wales (Malabar), Australia.