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Sedimentary evidence for recent eutrophication in the northern basin of Lake Taihu, China: human impacts on a large shallow lake

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Abstract

Environmental change in Lake Taihu and its catchment since the early to middle part of the twentieth century has left a clear geochemical record in the lake sediments. The human activities in the lake and its catchment responsible for the change include agriculture, fishery, urbanisation, sewage and industrial waster disposal. Sediment cores were collected from Meilian Bay of northern Lake Taihu to investigate the record of anthropogenic impacts on the lake’s ecosystem and to assess its natural, pre-eutrophication baseline state. Two marked stratigraphic sediment units were identified on the basis of total phosphorus concentration (TP), pigments, total organic carbon (TOC)/total nitrogen (TN), δ13C and δ15N corresponding to stages in the lake history dominated by phytoplankton, and by aquatic macrophytes. Results show that as TP loading increased from the early 1950s the lake produced sediments with increasing amounts of organic matter derived from phytoplankton. In the early 1950s, the first evidence for eutrophication at the Meilian Bay site is recorded by an increase in C/N values and in sediment accumulation rate, but there is little change in phosphorus concentrations, pigments, δ13C and δ15N at this time. After 1990 a more rapid increase in trophic status took place indicated by increased levels of phosphorus, pigments, δ15N and by decreased δ13C and TOC/TN values in the lake sediments. The first increase in trophic status of the early 1950s results mainly from agricultural development in the catchment. In contrast, the acceleration from ca. 1990 originates from the recent development of fisheries and the urbanisation and industrialisation of the catchment.

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Acknowledgements

We wish to thank Hu Yaohui, Pan Hongxi, Lin Lin and Liu Jianjun for their help in the field. We are also grateful to Chen Yuwei, N. Rose and anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions on the manuscript. This study was supported by the Key Innovation Project of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CXNIGLAS-A02-15; KZCX1-SW-12), the National Natural Science Fund of China (40673015), the National Key Project for Basic Research (2004CB720200) and the UK Royal Society/Chinese Academy of Sciences joint project on Shallow Lake Ecosystems.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 73 East Beijing Road, Nanjing, 210008, P.R. China

    Wu Jinglu & Zeng Haiao

  2. Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, CAS, Beijing, 100029, P.R. China

    Wu Jinglu

  3. Environmental Science & Engineering, Sichuan University, Sichuan, 10065, P.R. China

    Huang Chengmin

  4. Forschungszentrum Juelich, ICG-V, Juelich, D-52425, Germany

    Gerhard H. Schleser

  5. Environmental Change Research Centre, University College London, Gower St., London, WC1E 6BT, UK

    Rick Battarbee

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  1. Wu Jinglu
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  2. Huang Chengmin
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  4. Gerhard H. Schleser
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  5. Rick Battarbee
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Correspondence to Wu Jinglu.

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Jinglu, W., Chengmin, H., Haiao, Z. et al. Sedimentary evidence for recent eutrophication in the northern basin of Lake Taihu, China: human impacts on a large shallow lake. J Paleolimnol 38, 13–23 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10933-006-9058-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10933-006-9058-x

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