Lake St. Clair – Thames River Water Quality and Harmful Algal Bloom (HABs) Assessment

Session: Poster session

Alice Dove, Environment Canada, Water Quality Monitoring and Surveillance Ontario, [email protected]
Ngan Diep, Ontario Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, [email protected]
Todd Howell, Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Env. Monitoring & Reporting Br, [email protected]
Sean Backus, Environment and Climate Change Canada - Water Quality Monitoring and Surveillance Division, [email protected]
Vasile Furdui, Ontario Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, [email protected]

Abstract

Lake St. Clair is a shallow mesotrophic lake feeding into western Lake Erie via the Detroit River.  Recent NOAA satellite imagery of Lake St. Clair indicates cyanobacterial blooms that are not well documented at present.  The Thames River is the largest tributary on the Canadian shoreline of the lake and was identified as a priority tributary under Annex 4 -Nutrients of the GLWQA underscoring the need to better understand conditions in Lake St. Clair and linkage between discharges from the Thames River to lake conditions.  Our project assessed water quality and harmful algal blooms (HABs) in eastern Lake St. Clair along the shoreline from Chenal Ecarte to the upper Detroit River and along the lower Thames River.  Water quality sensors spread over the shoreline detected episodic turbidity peaks indicative of tributary plumes.  Modelling of hydrodynamics of the Lake St. Clair demonstrated potential for the Thames River plume to be expansive and extend into the Detroit River, notably at the beginning of the ice-free season.  Water chemistry and nutrient conditions in eastern Lake St. Clair were highly variable with inshore-offshore gradients.  Although no algal blooms were observed in 2016, on two occasions HABs were observed in the Thames River in 2017.    

1. Keyword
harmful algal blooms

2. Keyword
Lake St. Clair

3. Keyword
water quality