Details of Award
NERC Reference : NE/P009425/1
Using lake sediments to understand past and future changes in aquatic systems
Training Grant Award
- Lead Supervisor:
- Dr KA Selby, University of York, Environment
- Grant held at:
- University of York, Environment
- Science Area:
- Freshwater
- Terrestrial
- Overall Classification:
- Freshwater
- ENRIs:
- Environmental Risks and Hazards
- Global Change
- Pollution and Waste
- Science Topics:
- Palaeoenvironments
- Palaeo proxies
- Water Quality
- Lake sediments
- Abstract:
- Using lake sediments to understand past and future changes in aquatic systems This research will investigate the environmental consequences of past and future climate change on aquatic systems in England. Sediment cores from a transect of lakes, focussing on lowland areas, will provide a long term dataset that will form a baseline for understanding the natural variability of aquatic ecosystems. These data will be combined with recorded climate data since the Industrial Revolution, and environmental monitoring from the last thirty years, to examine the climate signal in these systems. Combined with new projections of future climate (2018 UK climate projections, UKCP18) and hydrological modelling, this research will fill an important gap in understanding the impact of climate change on English, and more widely global, waterbodies, and contribute to improved catchment planning and management. Lakes contain the majority of the world's liquid freshwater but knowledge of how climate change and particularly increasing temperature is affecting these systems is discontinuous and largely unknown. Increasing temperatures within lakes will affect physical and biological processes potentially leading to an increase in algal blooms and decreases in water quality that would affect the entire ecosystem and services it provides. Lake sediments provide terrestrial records of catchment-wide, and regional environmental changes, over different timescales from rapid climate shifts to longer term centennial-millenial trends. The main stressors on lacustrine systems are nutrient input, changes in land use, changes in acidity, and pollution. Lakes and their catchments respond to local weather conditions but the UK climate is also reacting to global increases in temperature, with the decade from 2005 to 2014 on average 0.9C warmer than the 1961-90 average. The student will work with the Environment Agency (CASE partner) to select lakes that represent a range of English catchments and levels of disturbance. Sediment cores will be extracted from several locations within the lakes using a sediment corer from a boat. Sediment from pre-Industrial Revolution to the present will be collected. Contemporary monitoring of the lakes will include dissolved oxygen content, water temperature and pH. In the laboratory, diatom (algae) analysis will occur to establish the pH, salinity and overall nutrient status of the past lake environment and establish baseline conditions. This will be combined with geochemical analysis using micro-XRF core scanning to establish changing environmental conditions e.g. Ca/Si will record water temperature changes. Stable isotopes of oxygen will be determined through the sediment profile to infer temperature changes. A chronology will be developed, allowing the rates of change to be determined, as well as the recovery time and resilience of the systems. In addition, statistical methods will be used to reconstruct variables such as nutrients, pH, salinity, temperature and dissolved organic content from the proxy data. The data generated will be compared to the water temperature archive held by the Environment Agency. The Environment Agency is working with The Meteorological Office on the development of new climate projections (UKCP18) and these will be used to explore future catchment scenarios. Hydrological models developed by the Environment Agency will be used to project how lake systems may change in the future. This research will directly address an important gap about how UK lakes will respond to climate change that was identified in the Living With Environmental Change Water Climate Change Impacts Report Card (2016), led by the Evidence Directorate at the Environment Agency, and the findings will be relevant to lake systems on a global scale.
- NERC Reference:
- NE/P009425/1
- Grant Stage:
- Completed
- Scheme:
- DTG - directed
- Grant Status:
- Closed
- Programme:
- Industrial CASE
This training grant award has a total value of £88,292
FDAB - Financial Details (Award breakdown by headings)
| Total - Fees | Total - Student Stipend | Total - RTSG |
|---|---|---|
| £17,296 | £59,998 | £11,000 |
If you need further help, please read the user guide.