Mitigating Toxic Planktonic Cyanobacterial Blooms in Aquatic Ecosystems Facing Increasing Anthropogenic and Climatic Pressures

Abstract

Toxic planktonic cyanobacterial blooms are a pressing environmental and human health problem. Blooms are expanding globally and threatening sustainability of our aquatic resources. Anthropogenic nutrient enrichment and hydrological modifications, including water diversions and reservoir construction, are major drivers of bloom expansion. Climatic change, i.e., warming, more extreme rainfall events, and droughts, act synergistically with human drivers to exacerbate the problem. Bloom mitigation steps, which are the focus of this review, must consider these dynamic interactive factors in order to be successful in the short- and long-term. Furthermore, these steps must be applicable along the freshwater to marine continuum connecting streams, lakes, rivers, estuarine, and coastal waters. There is an array of physical, chemical, and biological approaches, including flushing, mixing, dredging, application of algaecides, precipitating phosphorus, and selective grazing, that may arrest and reduce bloom intensities in the short-term. However, to ensure long term, sustainable success, targeting reductions of both nitrogen and phosphorus inputs should accompany these approaches along the continuum. Lastly, these strategies should accommodate climatic variability and change, which will likely modulate and alter nutrient-bloom thresholds.