#ESR11

Adaptation strategies against progressing anoxia in lakes.

Host institution

The University of Stirling, UK.

Project description

Oxygen is a fundamental water quality parameter; depletions in oxygen will affect fish habitat and increase anoxia promoting internal release of nutrients and heavy metals from lake sediment. Increased air temperatures are forecast to cause longer periods of stratification in lakes that will directly lead to longer periods of deoxygenation. Other climate-induced changes such as alterations to the strength of stratification and to hypolimnetic temperatures will also affect oxygen dynamics, as will any changes to phytoplankton productivity in lakes.

Oxygen concentration, and particularly deepwater oxygen concentration, is, therefore, at risk of significantly reducing because of climate change, with widespread negative consequences for standing water ecosystems. The impact of climate change on oxygen concentration needs to be understood for adaptation approaches to be applied effectively.

The objective of this project is to validate oxygen models against real data, use the models to understand the effect that different lake morphology has on oxygen dynamics, and conduct global modelling experiments to demonstrate the impact of future climate change and adaptation strategies on deep-water oxygen in lakes across the world.

Secondments

University of Uppsala, Uppsala, Sweden; 4 months
Dundalk Institute of Technology, Ireland; 3 months

ESR

Mahtab Yaghouti