Comparison of phosphorus fraction in eutrophic lake sediments from the northern hemisphere

Abstract

ABSTRACTLake sediments are subjected to intensive anthropogenic activities such as dumping of industrial waste water and leakage of P fertilisation from agricultural lands. There has a great body of research focusing on examining phosphorus fractions, which provide fundamental data that facilitate understanding the risk of P-induced eutrophication. Here, we have extracted the data of P fractions from 484 sediment samples residing in 48 lakes mainly in EU, China and USA. NH4Cl-P and total phosphorus (TP) displayed a well linear relationship, but not applicable to all lakes. Six groups were categorised as per the slope and intercept by using the clustering analysis. Specific measures were recommended to curb P release risk by considering the characteristics of each group. For instance, TP controlling is deemed as a priority in group with steep linear dependence of NH4Cl-P on TP. A significant correlation was determined between TP and NaOH-P (r2 = 0.63). Among other findings, larger lake area significantly contributes to lower all P pools. Deeper depth could only pronouncedly influence the BD-P, HCl-P. Additionally, we found lakes in Germany have pronounced higher averaged P pools than other regions. Furthermore, this paper creates awareness of the present status of lake eutrophication for researchers and policy-makers.