Lake aging concept revisited: alternative comprehensive approach to lake ontogeny

Abstract

The only available theoretical model explaining the natural development of lakes is a set of assumptions underlying the so-called lake aging concept (LAC). It incorrectly states that with time, lakes age and are inevitably and unidirectionally subject to eutrophication processes. In its most radical version, it misidentifies eutrophication, i.e., an increase in productivity resulting from enrichment in nutrients, with progressive disappearance of lakes over geological timescales due to the filling of the basin with sediment. To this day, LAC assumptions are referred to in various sources, including scientific articles, the Internet, official government documents, as well as teaching materials, all despite a critical approach to this concept presented in several publications, including limnology textbooks. This article, for the first time, presents the history of creation of LAC and an analysis of its main assumptions. A new alternative approach to explain lake ontogeny is also proposed, based on the current knowledge from several environmental sciences, including limnology, physical geography, and paleoecology.