Long-term citizen-collected data reveal geographical patterns and temporal trends in lake water clarity.

Noah R Lottig,Kendra Spence Cheruvelil,Tyler Wagner,Craig A Stow,John A Downing,Katherine E Webster,Emily Norton Henry,Peter S Petraitis

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0095769

Abstract

We compiled a lake-water clarity database using publically available, citizen volunteer observations made between 1938 and 2012 across eight states in the Upper Midwest, USA. Our objectives were to determine (1) whether temporal trends in lake-water clarity existed across this large geographic area and (2) whether trends were related to the lake-specific characteristics of latitude, lake size, or time period the lake was monitored. Our database consisted of >140,000 individual Secchi observations from 3,251 lakes that we summarized per lake-year, resulting in 21,020 summer averages. Using Bayesian hierarchical modeling, we found approximately a 1% per year increase in water clarity (quantified as Secchi depth) for the entire population of lakes. On an individual lake basis, 7% of lakes showed increased water clarity and 4% showed decreased clarity. Trend direction and strength were related to latitude and median sample date. Lakes in the southern part of our study-region had lower average annual summer water clarity, more negative long-term trends, and greater inter-annual variability in water clarity compared to northern lakes. Increasing trends were strongest for lakes with median sample dates earlier in the period of record (1938–2012). Our ability to identify specific mechanisms for these trends is currently hampered by the lack of a large, multi-thematic database of variables that drive water clarity (e.g., climate, land use/cover). Our results demonstrate, however, that citizen science can provide the critical monitoring data needed to address environmental questions at large spatial and long temporal scales. Collaborations among citizens, research scientists, and government agencies may be important for developing the data sources and analytical tools necessary to move toward an understanding of the factors influencing macro-scale patterns such as those shown here for lake water clarity.

Highlights

Macrosystems ecology has emerged as a new ecology subdiscipline aimed at understanding ecosystem patterns and processes resulting from broad-scale environmental changes such as land use and climate change
Of the 3,251 lakes examined, 128 (3.8%) and 224 (6.9%) had a 90% or greater probability of long-term declines or increases in Secchi depth, respectively
There has been a long history of examining water clarity trends and patterns augmented with citizen collected data, the results presented here incorporate over 140,000 citizen monitoring water clarity values, extending back to 1938, collected at greater spatial and temporal scales than any previous study we are aware of

Summary

Introduction

Macrosystems ecology has emerged as a new ecology subdiscipline aimed at understanding ecosystem patterns and processes resulting from broad-scale environmental changes such as land use and climate change. This sub-discipline studies multiscaled patterns and processes in biological, geophysical, and social components, and their interactions with each other and processes operating at finer and coarser scales [1]. The indicator of water quality with the longest history of standardized measurement by scientists and citizens alike is Secchi depth [6,7,8]. The frequent, citizen-collected Secchi depth readings that are publically available online (e.g., Secchi Dip-In; http://www.secchidipin.org) often span multiple decades for individual lakes and can be used to complement data collected by state and federal agencies

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion