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Global Change Effects on Water Level and Salinity: Causes and Effects

A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Biodiversity and Functionality of Aquatic Ecosystems".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2022) | Viewed by 9895

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Erik Jeppesen

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Guest Editor
1. Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, 8600 Silkeborg, Denmark
2. Limnology Laboratory, Department of Biological Sciences and Centre for Ecosystem Research and Implementation, Middle East Technical University, 06800 Ankara, Turkey
Interests: aquatic ecology; biological structure and interactions with the nutrient dynamics and climate in lakes; lake restoration; lake re-establishment; paleoecology; ecosystem modelling
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Meryem Beklioğlu

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Biological Sciences and Centre for Ecosystem Research and Implementation, Middle East Technical University, 06531 Ankara, Turkey
Interests: aquatic ecology; structure and functioning of shallow lakes ecosystems; impacts of climate change; hydrological alterations and eutrophication on lakes ecosystem structure; functioning and diversity
Dr. Egor Zadereev

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Institute of Biophysics, Krasnoyarsk Science Center, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, 660036 Krasnoyarsk, Russia
Interests: saline lakes; environmental management; ecosystem services provided by saline lakes; chemical interactions in aquatic ecosystems; population ecology; zooplankton; science communication

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The temperature and precipitation patterns are predicted to change markedly worldwide as a result of global change. The semi-arid and arid climate zone will experience much less net precipitation and runoff, while the north temperate zone is facing overall higher precipitation and runoff. It should also be noted that an increase in water abstraction is expected due to a global increase in demand for food in a growing population. These changes will lead to water level changes and the salinization of inland waters in the dry climate zones, while waters in areas with higher future precipitation or those affected by runoff from melting glaciers may show the reverse pattern. The magnitude of the future changes may have major effects on the functioning and biodiversity of inland aquatic ecosystems. Global warming also leads to rising sea levels and thus coastal seawater intrusions, further accelerated by an expected higher frequency and duration of extreme storms. However, little is known about the effect of changes in water level and salinity and their temporal variation on inland water ecosystems. To gain more insight into this field of research, we invite studies of water level and salinity effects on inland water ecosystems in all climate zones to this Special Issue. Results from experiments, time-series and space-for-time analysis, palaeoecological studies, meta-analyses and modelling are all welcomed.

Prof. Dr. Erik Jeppesen
Prof. Dr. Meryem Beklioğlu
Dr. Egor Zadereev
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Water is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • inland waters
  • salinity
  • water level
  • ecosystem structure and function
  • climate change
  • thresholds
  • resilience

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Published Papers (6 papers)

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Editorial

Jump to: Research

4 pages, 200 KiB  
Editorial
The Effects of Global Climate Change on Water Level and Salinity: Causes and Effects
by Erik Jeppesen, Meryem Beklioğlu and Egor Zadereev
Water 2023, 15(15), 2853; https://doi.org/10.3390/w15152853 - 7 Aug 2023
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2667
Abstract
Temperature and precipitation patterns are changing considerably worldwide because of global climate change [...] Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Global Change Effects on Water Level and Salinity: Causes and Effects)

Research

Jump to: Editorial

20 pages, 5724 KiB  
Article
Mesocosm Design and Implementation of Two Synchronized Case Study Experiments to Determine the Impacts of Salinization and Climate Change on the Structure and Functioning of Shallow Lakes
by Korhan Özkan, Mustafa Korkmaz, Cihelio Alves Amorim, Gültekin Yılmaz, Meltem Koru, Yasemin Can, Juan Pablo Pacheco, Vildan Acar, Mehmet Arda Çolak, Gül Canan Yavuz, Lucía Cabrera-Lamanna, Onat Arıkan, Öykü Tanrıverdi, Serhat Ertuğrul, İrem Gamze Arık, Hande Nesli, İlker H. Tunur, Burak Kuyumcu, Zuhal Akyürek, Can Özen, Meryem Beklioğlu and Erik Jeppesenadd Show full author list remove Hide full author list
Water 2023, 15(14), 2611; https://doi.org/10.3390/w15142611 - 18 Jul 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2775
Abstract
Salinization of freshwater ecosystems is one of the major challenges imposed largely by climate change and excessive water abstraction for irrigated crop farming. Understanding how aquatic ecosystems respond to salinization is essential for mitigation and adaptation to the changing climate, especially in arid [...] Read more.
Salinization of freshwater ecosystems is one of the major challenges imposed largely by climate change and excessive water abstraction for irrigated crop farming. Understanding how aquatic ecosystems respond to salinization is essential for mitigation and adaptation to the changing climate, especially in arid landscapes. Field observations provide invaluable data for this purpose, but they rarely include sufficient spatial and temporal domains; however, experimental approaches are the key to elucidating complex ecosystem responses to salinization. We established similar experimental mesocosm facilities in two different climate zones in Turkey, specifically designed to simulate the effects of salinization and climate change on shallow lake ecosystems. These facilities were used for two case-study experiments: (1) a salinity gradient experiment consisting of 16 salinity levels (range: 0–50 g/L); and (2) a heatwave experiment where two different temperature regimes (no heatwave and +6 °C for two weeks) were crossed with two salinity levels (4 and 40 g/L) with four replicates in each treatment. The experiments lasted 8 and 2 months, respectively, and the experimental mesocosms were monitored frequently. Both experiments demonstrated a significant role of salinization modulated by climate on the structure and function of lake ecosystems. Here, we present the design of the mesocosm facilities, show the basic results for both experiments and provide recommendations for the best practices for mesocosm experiments conducted under saline/hypersaline conditions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Global Change Effects on Water Level and Salinity: Causes and Effects)
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20 pages, 5506 KiB  
Article
Nutrients and Saltwater Exchange as Drivers of Environmental Change in a Danish Brackish Coastal Lake over the Past 100 Years
by Jonathan P. Lewis, David B. Ryves, Martin Søndergaard, Torben Linding Lauridsen, Lisolette Sander Johansson, Sh. Tserenpil, Peter Rasmussen and Erik Jeppesen
Water 2023, 15(6), 1116; https://doi.org/10.3390/w15061116 - 14 Mar 2023
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2225
Abstract
Many northwest European lake systems are suffering from the effects of eutrophication due to continued loading and/or poor, ineffective management strategies. Coastal brackish lakes are particularly difficult to manage due to complex nitrogen, phosphorus, and salinity dynamics that may exert varying influence on [...] Read more.
Many northwest European lake systems are suffering from the effects of eutrophication due to continued loading and/or poor, ineffective management strategies. Coastal brackish lakes are particularly difficult to manage due to complex nitrogen, phosphorus, and salinity dynamics that may exert varying influence on lake biological communities, but long-term data on how these important and often biodiverse systems respond to change are rare. In this study, palaeolimnological data (including sedimentary parameters, diatoms, and plant macrofossils) and environmental monitoring data (for the last ~40 years) have been used to assess environmental change over the last 100 years in Kilen, a brackish lake in northwest Jutland, Denmark. Kilen has been regularly monitored for salinity (since 1972), TP (from 1975), TN (from 1976), and since 1989 for biological data (phytoplankton, zooplankton, and macrophytes), which allows a robust comparison of contemporary and paleolimnological data at high temporal resolution. The palaeolimnological data indicate that the lake has been nutrient rich for the last 100 years, with eutrophication peaking from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s. Reduced nutrient concentrations have occurred since the late 1990s, though this is not reflected in the sediment core diatom assemblage, highlighting that caution must be taken when using quantitative data from biological transfer functions in paleolimnology. Lake recovery over the last 20 years has been driven by a reduction in TN and TP loading from the catchment and shows improvements in the lake water clarity and, recently, in macrophyte cover. Reduced salinity after 2004 has also changed the composition of the dominant macrophyte community within the lake. The low N:P ratio indicates that in summer, the lake is predominately N-limited, likely explaining why previous management, mainly focusing on TP reduction measures, had a modest effect on the water quality of the lake. Despite a slight recovery, the lake is still nutrient-rich, and future management of this system must continue to reduce the nutrient loads of both TN and TP to ensure sustained recovery. This study provides an exceptional opportunity to validate the palaeolimnological record with monitoring data and demonstrates the power of using this combined approach in understanding environmental change in these key aquatic ecosystems. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Global Change Effects on Water Level and Salinity: Causes and Effects)
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13 pages, 2925 KiB  
Article
Interactive Effects of Nutrients and Salinity on Phytoplankton in Subtropical Plateau Lakes of Contrasting Water Depths
by Ying Wang, Xia Jiang, Yan-Ling Li, Li-Juan Yang, Ye-Hao Li, Ying Liu, Long Zhou, Pu-Ze Wang, Xu Zhao, Hai-Jun Wang, Erik Jeppesen and Ping Xie
Water 2023, 15(1), 69; https://doi.org/10.3390/w15010069 - 25 Dec 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 3463
Abstract
Eutrophication and salinization are serious global environmental problems in freshwater ecosystems, occasionally acting jointly to exert harmful effects on aquatic ecosystems. To elucidate the interactive effects of nutrients and salinity on phytoplankton assemblages, we conducted a four-season study during 2020–2021 of eight lakes [...] Read more.
Eutrophication and salinization are serious global environmental problems in freshwater ecosystems, occasionally acting jointly to exert harmful effects on aquatic ecosystems. To elucidate the interactive effects of nutrients and salinity on phytoplankton assemblages, we conducted a four-season study during 2020–2021 of eight lakes from Yunnan Plateau (Southwest China) with a wide range of conductivities (Cond, reflecting degree of salinization), eutrophic states, and water depths and used General Additive Modeling (GAM) of the data. We found that: (1) species number (SN), density (DPhyt), and biomass (BPhyt) of phytoplankton showed stronger seasonal dynamics in shallow lakes than in deep lakes, all being, as expected, higher in the warm season; (2) annual and summer data revealed highly significant positive relationships between SN, DPhyt, and BPhyt with total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP), which became weaker at high TP occurring when the N:P ratio was low, indicating N limitation; (3) SN, DPhyt, and BPhyt showed a unimodal relationship with salinity, peaking at 400–1000 μS/cm (Cond); (4) the two dominant taxa (cyanobacteria and chlorophyta) showed different patterns, with chlorophyta generally dominating at low TN and cyanobacteria at high TN and Cond, suggesting the synergistic effect of nitrogen and Cond on cyanobacterial dominance. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Global Change Effects on Water Level and Salinity: Causes and Effects)
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25 pages, 4008 KiB  
Article
The Structuring Effects of Salinity and Nutrient Status on Zooplankton Communities and Trophic Structure in Siberian Lakes
by Egor Zadereev, Anton Drobotov, Olesya Anishchenko, Anzhelika Kolmakova, Tatiana Lopatina, Natalia Oskina and Alexander Tolomeev
Water 2022, 14(9), 1468; https://doi.org/10.3390/w14091468 - 4 May 2022
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 3256
Abstract
Many continental saline lakes are under the effects of salinity increase and anthropogenic eutrophication exacerbated by global change. The response of the food web to these drivers of change is not straightforward. To understand the consequences of salinity and eutrophication interactive effects on [...] Read more.
Many continental saline lakes are under the effects of salinity increase and anthropogenic eutrophication exacerbated by global change. The response of the food web to these drivers of change is not straightforward. To understand the consequences of salinity and eutrophication interactive effects on the food web, we studied the seasonal dynamics of zooplankton and phytoplankton and water quality parameters in 20 lakes of different salinity (from freshwater to hypersaline) and nutrient status (from oligotrophic to eutrophic) located in southern Siberia. We observed a pronounced bottom-up effect of nutrients, which induced an increase in the biomass of phytoplankton and zooplankton and a decline in water quality. A significant decrease in the species abundance of zooplankton was observed at a threshold salinity of 3 g L−1 and the disappearance of fish at 10 g L−1. The top-down effect induced by salinity manifested itself in an increase in the biomass of zooplankton with the disappearance of fish, and in the change of the size distribution of phytoplankton particles with an increase in the proportion of cladocerans in the zooplankton. Even though we observed that with the salinity increase the food web in saline lakes transformed from three-trophic to two-trophic without fish, we conclude that in the salinity range from 10 to 20–30 g L−1 this transition in most cases will not increase the ability of zooplankton to control phytoplankton. Interactive effects of salinity and eutrophication strongly depend on the size and depth of the lake, as deep stratified lakes tend to have a better water quality with lower biomasses of both phyto- and zooplankton. Thus, the salinity per se is not the driver of the decline in water clarity or the uncontrolled development of phytoplankton. Moreover, for deep lakes, salinity may be a factor affecting the stability of stratification, which mitigates the consequences of eutrophication. Thus, small shallow lakes will be the most vulnerable to the joint effect of salinity increase and eutrophication with the degradation of ecosystem functioning and water quality at moderate salinities of 3–20 g L−1. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Global Change Effects on Water Level and Salinity: Causes and Effects)
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25 pages, 13298 KiB  
Article
Increased Water Abstraction and Climate Change Have Substantial Effect on Morphometry, Salinity, and Biotic Communities in Lakes: Examples from the Semi-Arid Burdur Basin (Turkey)
by Mehmet Arda Çolak, Barış Öztaş, İbrahim Kaan Özgencil, Melisa Soyluer, Mustafa Korkmaz, Arely Ramírez-García, Melisa Metin, Gültekin Yılmaz, Serhat Ertuğrul, Ülkü Nihan Tavşanoğlu, Cihelio Alves Amorim, Can Özen, Meral Apaydın Yağcı, Abdulkadir Yağcı, Juan Pablo Pacheco, Korhan Özkan, Meryem Beklioğlu, Erik Jeppesen and Zuhal Akyürek
Water 2022, 14(8), 1241; https://doi.org/10.3390/w14081241 - 12 Apr 2022
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 4124
Abstract
Global warming and altered precipitation patterns are predicted to intensify the water loss in semi-arid and arid regions, and such regions in Turkey will be particularly affected. Moreover, water abstraction, not least for irrigation purposes, is expected to increase markedly, posing major threats [...] Read more.
Global warming and altered precipitation patterns are predicted to intensify the water loss in semi-arid and arid regions, and such regions in Turkey will be particularly affected. Moreover, water abstraction, not least for irrigation purposes, is expected to increase markedly, posing major threats to the water balance of the lakes and thus their biodiversity. Among the closed basins in Turkey, the Burdur Closed Basin (BCB), located in the southwest of Turkey, is expected to be most affected. The BCB includes several types of aquatic ecosystems which support high biodiversity, including one Ramsar site, six Important Bird Areas, and a considerable richness of native and endemic fish species. Therefore, it is essential to analyze the potential environmental impacts of climate change and increased water abstraction on BCB lakes and their biotic communities. Here, we combined historical data on ecosystems as well as meteorological, remote sensing, and ground-truth data to analyze the changes in the temperature and precipitation of the BCB, water surface areas, and land use, as well as the potential effects on waterbird and fish communities. We calculated the water budget to elucidate water availability in the basin over the last few decades and predicted future conditions based on rainfall and temperature forecasts using climate models. The Standardized Precipitation–Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) was used to relate the water surface area to precipitation and temperature change in the basin. Crop-farming irrigation in the BCB has increased notably since 2004, leading to intensive water abstraction from the lakes and their inflows, as well as from ground water, to meet the increased demand for irrigation. The water abstraction from the lakes, inflows to the lakes, and the groundwater in the basin has increased the water loss in the catchment substantially. Remotely sensed data on lake surface areas showed a major shrinkage of shallow lakes in the last 40 years. Moreover, the largest lake in the basin, Lake Burdur, lost nearly half of its surface area, which is worrisome since the shallower areas are the most suitable for supporting high biodiversity. Climate models (CNRM-ESM2-1GCM for temperature and GFDL-ESM4-GCM for precipitation) suggest that from 2070, the BCB will face long-term, moderate-to-severe dry periods. This, and the increased demand for water for irrigation, along with climate change, may accelerate the drying of these lakes in the near future with devastating effects on the lake ecosystems and their biodiversity. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Global Change Effects on Water Level and Salinity: Causes and Effects)
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