Influence of wind and light on the floating and sinking process of Microcystis

Abstract

The vertical migration and accumulation of Microcystis colonies is a critical process in algal bloom formation. This work explored the effect of wind and light intensity on the vertical migration of Microcystis colonies. The wind-driven currents, light-driven changes in mass density of colonies, and the effect of colony size was coupled to simulate the vertical motion of colonies via Ansys Fluent and MATLAB. Results showed that light causes Microcystis to exhibit a ‘day-sinking and night-floating’ (d-n) phenomenon, however, wind weakens the phenomenon by forming a turbulent drag force that inhibits the vertical movement of Microcystis. This study proposed a kinetic ratio-based method, that there is a specific equilibrium turbulent kinetic energy and when turbulent kinetic energy of the water body is greater than the equilibrium turbulent kinetic energy, the d-n phenomenon does not occur. For Lake Taihu, the wind-driven turbulent kinetic energy is usually greater than the equilibrium turbulent kinetic energy. Therefore, Microcystis colonies may not exhibit the d-n phenomenon. Our findings provide a new theoretical basis for current process-based models in simulating algal blooms in large shallow lakes.