Forecasting the causes, consequences and potential solutions for hypoxia in Lake Erie (University of Michigan)
Lake Erie is the southernmost and shallowest of the Laurentian Great Lakes, and is used extensively for drinking water, recreation, and the fishing industry. It receives runoff from watersheds in the states of Indiana, Michigan, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania in the United States, and in the Province of Ontario in Canada. Excessive phosphorus (P) input to the waters of Lake Erie during the mid-1900s may have contributed to the decline of several commercially important fishes by the 1960s. Measures taken to reduce P load resulted in enhanced oxygen levels, and several fish species had begun to recover by the mid 1990s. More recently, however, large-scale low-oxygen or hypoxic conditions have returned to levels comparable to those during the height of the problem in the mid-1900s. It is not clear why this has happened. The objective of this project is to better understand and forecast the conditions that have lead to the present low oxygen state in Lake Erie. Key factors that will be addressed include phosphorus loading, zebra mussel (dreissenid) populations and climate change variability. These forecasts will be conducted within an Integrated Assessment framework that provides legitimate, useful, and timely information and advice over time and space scales relevant for land-use and fisheries management. The input and feedback from these managers is critical to the success of this project and key representatives of relevant agencies have been included in its development.
