Spatiotemporal variability and environmental factors of harmful algal blooms (HABs) over western Lake Erie.

Over the past decades, numerous studies have been carried out in understanding causes of Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) and their dynamics, yielding great knowledge in this field. Lake Erie, the fourth-largest lake of the five Great Lake, is among those highly vulnerable to the impacts of HABs and has...

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Main Authors: Di Tian, Gengxin Xie, Jing Tian, Kuo-Hsin Tseng, C K Shum, Jiyoung Lee, Song Liang
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2017-01-01
Series:PLoS ONE
Online Access:http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC5489311?pdf=render
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author Di Tian
Gengxin Xie
Jing Tian
Kuo-Hsin Tseng
C K Shum
Jiyoung Lee
Song Liang
author_facet Di Tian
Gengxin Xie
Jing Tian
Kuo-Hsin Tseng
C K Shum
Jiyoung Lee
Song Liang
author_sort Di Tian
collection DOAJ
description Over the past decades, numerous studies have been carried out in understanding causes of Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) and their dynamics, yielding great knowledge in this field. Lake Erie, the fourth-largest lake of the five Great Lake, is among those highly vulnerable to the impacts of HABs and has received substantial attention from the public, water management sectors, and academic field. Building upon previous work, this study aims to characterize spatiotemporal variability of Chlorophyll a (Chl-a), which is an important indicator of HABs, and to explore relative importance of environmental factors associated with HABs in the west Lake Erie. Ten years of biweekly Chl-a information over western Lake Erie were derived from MERIS data at the pixel scale. Based on the MERIS-derived information high concentrations of Chl-a were observed in the south near shore area in spring and fall and in the west corner area of western Lake Erie in all three seasons except winter. Wavelet analysis suggested that the 0.5- and 1-year periods were dominant modes for the Chl-a series. The Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines (MARS) analysis was performed to explore factors associated with the dynamics of Chl-a. The results suggested that overall both phenological (e.g. wind) and ecological (e.g. nutrient levels) factors exhibited significant correlations with the remotely-sensed imagery based observations of Chl-a despite spatial and temporal variations. The important phenological and ecological factors include solar radiation and wind speed in spring, water temperature, solar radiation, and total Kjeldahl nitrogen concentration in summer, wind speed in fall, and water temperature and streamflow in winter. Both consistency and differences of findings of the study with others in the region may suggest strengths and limitations of the remotely sensed imagery-based analysis, offering valuable information for future work.
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spelling doaj.art-8973bbd37f994a03afe1545987558b702022-12-22T00:07:05ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032017-01-01126e017962210.1371/journal.pone.0179622Spatiotemporal variability and environmental factors of harmful algal blooms (HABs) over western Lake Erie.Di TianGengxin XieJing TianKuo-Hsin TsengC K ShumJiyoung LeeSong LiangOver the past decades, numerous studies have been carried out in understanding causes of Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) and their dynamics, yielding great knowledge in this field. Lake Erie, the fourth-largest lake of the five Great Lake, is among those highly vulnerable to the impacts of HABs and has received substantial attention from the public, water management sectors, and academic field. Building upon previous work, this study aims to characterize spatiotemporal variability of Chlorophyll a (Chl-a), which is an important indicator of HABs, and to explore relative importance of environmental factors associated with HABs in the west Lake Erie. Ten years of biweekly Chl-a information over western Lake Erie were derived from MERIS data at the pixel scale. Based on the MERIS-derived information high concentrations of Chl-a were observed in the south near shore area in spring and fall and in the west corner area of western Lake Erie in all three seasons except winter. Wavelet analysis suggested that the 0.5- and 1-year periods were dominant modes for the Chl-a series. The Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines (MARS) analysis was performed to explore factors associated with the dynamics of Chl-a. The results suggested that overall both phenological (e.g. wind) and ecological (e.g. nutrient levels) factors exhibited significant correlations with the remotely-sensed imagery based observations of Chl-a despite spatial and temporal variations. The important phenological and ecological factors include solar radiation and wind speed in spring, water temperature, solar radiation, and total Kjeldahl nitrogen concentration in summer, wind speed in fall, and water temperature and streamflow in winter. Both consistency and differences of findings of the study with others in the region may suggest strengths and limitations of the remotely sensed imagery-based analysis, offering valuable information for future work.http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC5489311?pdf=render
spellingShingle Di Tian
Gengxin Xie
Jing Tian
Kuo-Hsin Tseng
C K Shum
Jiyoung Lee
Song Liang
Spatiotemporal variability and environmental factors of harmful algal blooms (HABs) over western Lake Erie.
PLoS ONE
title Spatiotemporal variability and environmental factors of harmful algal blooms (HABs) over western Lake Erie.
title_full Spatiotemporal variability and environmental factors of harmful algal blooms (HABs) over western Lake Erie.
title_fullStr Spatiotemporal variability and environmental factors of harmful algal blooms (HABs) over western Lake Erie.
title_full_unstemmed Spatiotemporal variability and environmental factors of harmful algal blooms (HABs) over western Lake Erie.
title_short Spatiotemporal variability and environmental factors of harmful algal blooms (HABs) over western Lake Erie.
title_sort spatiotemporal variability and environmental factors of harmful algal blooms habs over western lake erie
url http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC5489311?pdf=render
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