Modeling sediment oxygen demand in a highly productive lake under various trophic scenarios

PLoS One. 2019 Oct 9;14(10):e0222318. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0222318. eCollection 2019.

Abstract

Hypolimnetic oxygen depletion in lakes is a widespread problem and is mainly controlled by the sediment oxygen uptake (SOU) and flux of reduced substances out of the sediments (Fred). Especially in eutrophic lakes, Fred may constitute a major fraction of the areal hypolimnetic mineralization rate, but its size and source is often poorly understood. Using a diagenetic reaction-transport model supported by a large data set of sediment porewater concentrations, bulk sediment core data and lake monitoring data, the behavior of Fred was simulated in eutrophic Lake Baldegg. Transient boundary conditions for the gross sedimentation of total organic carbon and for hypolimnetic O2 concentrations were applied to simulate the eutrophication and re-oligotrophication history of the lake. According to the model, Fred is dominated by methanogenesis, where up to70% to the total CH4 is produced from sediments older than 20 years deposited during the time of permanent anoxia between 1890 and 1982. An implementation of simplified seasonal variations of the upper boundary conditions showed that their consideration is not necessary for the assessment of annual average fluxes in long-term simulations. Four lake management scenarios were then implemented to investigate the future development of Fred and SOU until 2050 under different boundary conditions. A comparison of three trophic scenarios showed that further reduction of the lake productivity to at least a mesotrophic state is required to significantly decrease Fred and SOU from the present state. Conversely, a termination of artificial aeration at the present trophic state would result in high rates of organic matter deposition and a long-term increase of Fred from the sediments of Lake Baldegg.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Ammonia / analysis
  • Calibration
  • Carbon / analysis
  • Computer Simulation
  • Geologic Sediments / chemistry*
  • Lakes / chemistry*
  • Methane / analysis
  • Models, Theoretical*
  • Nitrates / analysis
  • Organic Chemicals / analysis
  • Oxygen / analysis*
  • Oxygen Consumption
  • Seasons
  • Sulfates / analysis
  • Water

Substances

  • Nitrates
  • Organic Chemicals
  • Sulfates
  • Water
  • Carbon
  • Ammonia
  • Methane
  • Oxygen

Associated data

  • figshare/10.6084/m9.figshare.5170687

Grants and funding

The study was funded by supported by Swiss National Fund (SNF) Grant 200021_146234. The funder provided support in the form of salaries for authors Dr. Thomas Steinsberger, Dr. Babak Shafei and Dr. Christoph Gerber, but did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The specific roles of these authors are articulated in the ‘author contributions’ section. AquaRNG did not play a role in the funding or conception nor handling of the project.