Lakes climate change impacts

Here we revisit two important topics in limnology just to show that climate change studies that only include data from lakes are not applicable to reservoirs. Firstly, we show that temperature trends in reservoirs and lakes cannot be interpreted in the same way. Secondly, we show that drivers of the deep-water oxygen content in reservoirs and lakes can be very different. This last analysis will be used in the following section as the starting point for a new framework for climate change impact studies in reservoirs. 

Bajracharya SR, Mool P, Shrestha B (2007) Impact of climate change on Himalayan glaciers and glacial lakes Case studies on GLOF and associated hazards in Nepal and Bhutan. ICIMOD Publ, Kathmandu, p 119... 

Part 1, Alpine Water Resources, examines the hydrological basics, the impacts of climate change in the Swiss Alps, and human interventions in mountain waters. Part 11, Biogeochemistry and Pollution of Alpine Waters, deals with the chemistry of mountain rivers, the effects of acid deposition on high elevation lakes, the glaciers as archives of atmospheric deposition, and the occurrence of persistent organic contaminants. 

In the case of freshwaters, the past effects of climate change on UV exposure have impacted sedimentary records in a remarkable way. Analysis of fossil diatom assemblages in Canadian subarctic lake sediments has provided evidence of the interactive impacts of climate change and solar UVR on CDOM concentrations during the Holocene [86]. 

The need for a catchment-scale approach to freshwater ecosystem management is recognised by the EU Water Framework Directive, where the basic unit of management is referred to as the river basin district (European Commission, 2000). The complexity of the interactions between aquatic and terrestrial systems at the catchment scale necessitates a modelling approach also at the catchment scale. With respect to climate change, existing or new models need development to represent climate, soil, land use, lakes, rivers and coastal waters, so that the responses of whole catchment systems can be simulated and the models used to assess the impacts of alternative catchment management decisions. 

Duwe, K. et al. (2007) Impact of Climate Change on Large Deep Lakes, Euro-limpacs Deliverable No. 155. 

Meyers, P. A., 1990. Impacts of regional Late Quaternary climate changes on the deposition of sedimentary organic matter in Walker Lake Nevada. Palaeogeogr. Palaeoclim. Palaeoecol. 78 229-240. 

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