Andreas Matzinger

Sensitivity of Ancient Lake Ohrid to Local Anthropogenic Impacts and Global Warming

ABSTRACT Human impacts on the few ancient lakes of the world must be assessed, as any change can lead to an irreversible loss of endemic communities. In such an assessment, the sensitivity of Lake Ohrid (Macedonia/Albania; surface area A = 358 km2, volume V = 55 km3, > 200 endemic species) to three major human impacts—water abstraction, eutrophication, and global warming—is evaluated. It is shown that ongoing eutrophication presents the major threat to this unique lake system, even under the conservative assumption of an increase in phosphorus (P) concentration from the current 4.5 to a potential future 9 mg P m−3. Eutrophication would lead to a significant reduction in light penetration, which is a prerequisite for endemic, deep living plankton communities. Moreover, a P increase to 9 mg P m−3 would create deep water anoxia through elevated oxygen consumption and increase in the water column stability due to more mineralization of organic material. Such anoxic conditions would severely threaten the endemic bottom fauna. The trend toward anoxia is further amplified by the predicted global warming of 0.04°C yr−1, which significantly reduces the frequency of complete seasonal deep convective mixing compared to the current warming of 0.006°C yr−1. This reduction in deep water exchange is triggered by the warming process rather than by overall higher temperatures in the lake. In contrast, deep convective mixing would be even more frequent than today under a higher temperature equilibrium, as a result of the temperature dependence of the thermal expansivity of water. Although water abstraction may change local habitats, e.g., karst spring areas, its effects on overall lake properties was shown to be of minor importance.

Hypolimnetic Oxygen Depletion in Eutrophic Lakes

The oxygen-consuming processes in the hypolimnia of freshwater lakes leading to deep-water anoxia are still not well understood, thereby constraining suitable management concepts. This study presents data obtained from 11 eutrophic lakes and suggests a model describing the consumption of dissolved oxygen (O(2)) in the hypolimnia of eutrophic lakes as a result of only two fundamental processes: O(2) is consumed (i) by settled organic material at the sediment surface and (ii) by reduced substances diffusing from the sediment. Apart from a lakes productivity, its benthic O(2) consumption depends on the O(2) concentration in the water overlying the sediment and the molecular O(2) diffusion to the sediment. On the basis of observational evidence of long-term monitoring data from 11 eutrophic lakes, we found that the areal hypolimnetic mineralization rate ranging from 0.47 to 1.31 g of O(2) m(-2) d(-1) (average 0.90 ± 0.30) is a function of (i) a benthic flux of reduced substances (0.37 ± 0.12 g of O(2) m(-2) d(-1)) and (ii) an O(2) consumption which linearly increases with the mean hypolimnion thickness (z(H)) up to ~25 m. This model has important implications for predicting and interpreting the response of lakes and reservoirs to restoration measures.