Details zur Publikation

Kategorie Textpublikation
Referenztyp Zeitschriften
DOI 10.1016/j.envres.2025.120813
Titel (primär) Record-setting cyanobacterial bloom in the largest freshwater lake in northern China caused by joint effects of hydrological variations and nutrient enrichment
Autor Tao, Y.; Zhang, Y.; Kong, X.; Zhang, S.; Xue, Y.; Ao, W.; Pang, B.; Dou, H.; Xue, B.
Quelle Environmental Research
Erscheinungsjahr 2025
Department SEEFO
Band/Volume 268
Seite von art. 120813
Sprache englisch
Topic T5 Future Landscapes
Supplements https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0013935125000647-mmc1.docx
https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0013935125000647-mmc2.xlsx
Keywords Hulun Lake; cyanobacterial blooms; GOTM-WET; water level fluctuations; early warning signal
Abstract Cyanobacterial blooms represent a significant environmental issue posing widespread threats to global aquatic ecological health. Climate and nutrient enrichment were the most studied factors modulating cyanobacterial blooms in eutrophic lakes. However, in many floodplain lakes, the importance of hydrological variation in driving and predicting cyanobacterial blooms is often overlooked and largely underestimated, which has hampered the effectiveness of lake management. Here, we use a process-based lake ecosystem model (GOTM-WET) to evaluate the potential drivers of the record-setting cyanobacterial bloom during summer 2022 (>70% of lake area) in the largest shallow lake in Northern China (Hulun Lake). The model was calibrated based on a comprehensive field dataset including both remote sensing (surface water temperature) and in-lake observations (water quality). We performed a scenario analysis with various combinations of nutrient loading, hydrological variations and climate change. Our modeling results unravel that the profound water level rise through 2021 to 2022 serves as the main trigger of the severe cyanobacterial bloom in summer 2022, whereas climate factors demonstrate marginal impacts. Our model predicted a decrease of 60.5% in the annual average of cyanobacterial biomass when water level remained stable. In addition, both water level change and nutrient concentration explains 72.5% of the variance in long-term maximum area of cyanobacterial blooms.
Our model further reveals that the water level rise drives the cyanobacterial bloom via bringring in excessive nutrient to lake water column from the lake basin. Thus, our results suggest that continuous increase in water level across two years could serve as an early warning signal to cyanobacterial blooms in the consecutive summer. Our findings may be applicable to similar temperate shallow lakes in floodplain areas, especially for those located in agricultural and pasture regions with abundant nutrient legacy, thus may provide a new indicator for cyanobacterial blooms prediction.
dauerhafte UFZ-Verlinkung https://www.ufz.de/index.php?en=20939&ufzPublicationIdentifier=30325
Tao, Y., Zhang, Y., Kong, X., Zhang, S., Xue, Y., Ao, W., Pang, B., Dou, H., Xue, B. (2025):
Record-setting cyanobacterial bloom in the largest freshwater lake in northern China caused by joint effects of hydrological variations and nutrient enrichment
Environ. Res. 268 , art. 120813 10.1016/j.envres.2025.120813