Remote examination of the seasonal succession of phytoplankton assemblages from time-varying trends

Abstract

The seasonal succession of phytoplankton assemblages is important to ascertain the dynamics of an aquatic ecosystem structure, whereas its occurrence in response to hydrodynamic alterations is not clearly understood. In view of the characteristics of annual water level variation formed by the Three Gorges Dam Project (TGDP), our understanding about how these changes affect phytoplankton structure and dynamics is still very limited due to the shortage of long-term observation data. In this study, we used Huan Jing 1 charge-coupled device images over the past decade to examine the phytoplankton succession dates between cyanobacterial and green algal blooms in the backwater area of the Three Gorges Reservoir (TGR). The results indicated continuous wavelet transform-based peak analysis is an efficiency tool that can illustrate the temporal pattern of phytoplankton succession using satellite-derived chlorophyll ɑ and Cyano-Chlorophyta index thresholds. Water level, air temperature, pH and total nitrogen/total phosphorus ratio were four important factors affecting the decline and rise phase of cyanobacterial blooms in the TGR from 2008 to 2018. Given that the upstream dam operation is likely to alter ecological and environmental conditions in the backwater area, this mechanism, so-called “water-level linkage”, could alleviate the persistent period of cyanobacterial and green algal blooms. Remote sensing together with time series analysis provided a useful method to examine the seasonal succession of phytoplankton assemblages in the TGR, and these findings provided strategic insight for the water-quality management in the post-TGDP period.