Trophic State, Eutrophication, and the Threats for Water Quality of the Great Mazurian Lake System

Abstract

One of the greatest threats to water quality is accelerated eutrophication, resulting from human activity, like the high intensity of tourism, surface runoffs from fertilized fields, and municipal pollution. Water eutrophication manifests as excessive growth of phytoplankton caused by overabundant nitrogen, phosphorus, and other nutrient supply which causes deterioration of water quality related to the amount of bacterial biomass in eutrophicated water reservoirs. The Great Mazurian Lake System (GMLS) is a chain of lakes located in mesoregion of the Great Mazurian Lakes in the Northeastern Poland. All lakes of the GMLS are connected by natural or artificial channels built in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and nowadays create widely spilled, long (the easiest route from northern to southern edge is about 110 km) gutter unique on the scale of the continent. The lakes of GMLS are of glacial origin. During the last five decades, all lakes of the GMLS passed different levels of eutrophication, thus significantly changing their trophic states. This report describes past and present trophic conditions of lakes of GMLS and analyzes environmental factors responsible for eutrophication of their waters. Eutrophication processes are not only responsible for high nutrients levels in lakes, extensive growth of phytoplankton biomass and productivity, cyanobacterial predominance, etc., but eutrophication is also responsible and connected to several threats for water quality. Presence of pathogenic bacteria, as well as the potential presence of many antibiotic-resistant bacteria in lakes of the GMLS, is discussed.