Author:
Kutser Tiit,Soomets Tuuli
Abstract
AbstractLakes are a crucial source of drinking water, provide ecological services from fisheries and aquaculture to tourism and are also a critical part of the global carbon cycle. Therefore, it is important to understand how lakes are changing over time. The ESA Ocean Colour Climate Change Initiative (OC-CCI) database allows to study changes in the largest lakes over 1997–2023 period. The Caspian Sea and ten next largest lakes were under investigation. Changes in the phytoplankton biomass (Chl-a), the concentration of particulate matter (bbp(555)), the colored dissolved organic matter, CDOM (adg(412)), and the light diffuse attenuation coefficient in water (Kd(490)) were analyzed. Both increasing and decreasing trends (or no significant trend at all) of studied parameters were observed in these lakes over the study period. In some of the Laurentian Great Lakes the changes in CDOM over the study period were found to be in accordance with the lake water level changes i.e. with the inflow from the catchment. There was difference between the trends of Chl-a and bbp(555) in lakes Michigan and Huron indicating that there may have been shift in phytoplankton community that took place around 2005. The study demonstrated that remote sensing products, like the ones created by ESA OC-CCI, are valuable tools to study behavior of large lakes ecosystems over time.
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Reference72 articles.
1. Tranvik, L. J. et al. Lakes and reservoirs as regulators of carbon cycling and climate. Limnol. Oceanogr. 54(6 PART 2), 2298–2314 (2009).
2. Tranvik, L., Cole, J. J. & Prairie, Y. T. The study of carbon in inland waters-from isolated ecosystems to players in the global carbon cycle. Limnol. Oceanogr. Lett. 3(3), 41–48 (2018).
3. Jenny, J. P. et al. Scientists’ warning to humanity: Rapid degradation of the world’s large lakes. J. Great Lakes Res. 46, 686–702 (2020).
4. O’Reilly, C. M. et al. Rapid and highly variable warming of lake surface waters around the globe. Geophys. Res. Lett. 42(24), 10–773 (2015).
5. Sayers, M., Bosse, K., Fahnenstiel, G. & Shuchman, R. Carbon fixation trends in eleven of the world’s largest lakes: 2003–2018. Water (Switzerland) 12(12), 3500 (2020).