FOSS4G BASED HIGH FREQUENCY AND INTEROPERABLE LAKE WATER-QUALITY MONITORING SYSTEM

Climate, together with human activities, is changing the natural dynamics in lake ecosystems and adding new challenges to the management of water resources. Recent studies on Lake Lugano, in Switzerland, showed for instance that the increased water temperature influence other processes such as lake stratification and mixing dynamics, algal blooms, colonisation by alien species, affecting the lake ecosystem as a whole. In such situation, real-time systems with high frequency measurements, together with the traditional discrete monitoring, can help in understanding dynamics and processes occurring on short time scales. To this aim, an open monitoring system largely composed by open source components is being developed for the high frequency monitoring of Lake Lugano. The system relies on the open source software istSOS either on the server and node sides applying the edge computing paradigm which is more and more adopted in the Internet of Things field. The implementation collects temperature and dissolved oxygen data from sensors positioned at six different depths of the lake and transmits them using the LoRa radio frequency to a data warehouse. At server side, the software architecture adopts the evolving technology based on containers where services can be grouped in a compose and easily deployed on a server. This paper aims to describe the adopted open source technology and demonstrate that it can be successfully used also in environmental monitoring where the accessibility is limited and the weather conditions can be unpredictable.

SIMILE: An integrated monitoring system to understand, protect and manage sub-alpine lakes and their ecosystem

<p>Lakes are a fundamental resource for the Insubric region (cross-border area that includes Ticino, North Lombardy and west Piedmont regions). Therefore the quality of their waters must be protected from the risks caused by the increased anthropogenic pressure and climate change. The main objective of the interreg project named SIMILE (https://interreg-italiasvizzera.eu/database_progetti/simile/) is to support decision making in the definition of management policies through an advanced information system based on data obtained from innovative monitoring systems (automatic, diversified, cost-effective and with high spatial and temporal resolution). The information system will also facilitate the identification of possible critical issues understanding the specific causes in a timely manner by using a common methodology across Switzerland and Italy: specifically for Lake Lugano, Lake Maggiore and Lake Como. The project aims at capitalizing and sharing the experiences of the project partners in the field of monitoring and management of water resources in the project area, in particular in the context of the CIPAIS programs (IT-CH international water protection commission). The information system, fully open, is designed to offer an effective, lowcost and sustainable solution that can be maintained by the project partners beyond the end of the project. From a scientific and technical point of view the project is based on the combination of advanced automatic and continuous observation systems, high resolution remote sensing data processing, citizen science and ecological and physical models. In this presentation we will discuss experiences gained from the deployment of cost-effective monitoring platform and open technologies used for data colection, archive, processing and dissemination.</p><p><img src="https://contentmanager.copernicus.org/fileStorageProxy.php?f=gepj.c525250b070069034701161/sdaolpUECMynit/12UGE&app=m&a=0&c=d3c1099d7d8e917b1c0312e6a43308ab&ct=x&pn=gepj.elif&d=1" alt=""></p>

Effects of phosphorus control on primary productivity and deep-water oxygenation: insights from Lake Lugano (Switzerland and Italy)

Attempts to restore Lake Lugano, Switzerland and Italy, from eutrophication have produced weak responses in the target variables (primary productivity and hypolimnetic oxygen concentrations), indicating shortcomings in the underlying eutrophication model. An analysis of monitoring data showed that the decrease in phosphorus concentration, although nearly compliant with restoration targets, produced only slight decreases in primary productivity and no change in hypolimnetic oxygen conditions. These target variables were equally or more sensitive to factors external to trophic state, including plankton structure, which influenced primary productivity, and the depth of mixing during turnovers, which influenced hypolimnetic oxygen. To improve the chance of success, the restoration approach should revise the phosphorus concentration target and explicitly account for the influence of external variation, especially mixing depth.

World Mining Regions before the Rise of Modern Capitalism

This chapter talks about how geology not only sets in motion the primary “law of attraction” and pulled miners into the wombs of mountains, but also how geography cultivated and turned excitement in mining into an economic force. Geography initiated the conditions for turning ore deposits into the underground wealth of Europe. The results were astonishing: the low elevations of Europe's mountains were transformed into world mining regions. The chapter describes mining regions, such as the central Alps and Lombardy that constituted a world mining region from the twelfth to the fourteenth century. Mining fields extended into the Austrian Alps and the territori montuosi that encircle Lake Lugano, between Lake Maggiore and Lake Como. Later in the fifteenth century, mining fields shifted slightly to the east, in Padova, Vicenza, Verona, Treviso, Feltre, and Belluno, north of Venice, controlled by diverse società tedesca.

Phytoplankton functional group classifications as a tool for biomonitoring shallow lakes: a case study

We assessed changes in phytoplankton community structure in relation to environmental variables in an urban eutrophic shallow lake (Lake Lugano, Argentina) throughout one year following two classification systems according to the morpho-functional groups (MFG) approach and morphologically based functional groups (MBFG). We aimed to compare the different approaches and find a simple tool to biomonitor urban freshwaters regarding their phytoplankton structure. Values of transparency, nutrients and chlorophyll a concentrations confirmed the eutrophic/hypertrophic conditions of the lake. The potentially toxic Cyanobacteria Planktothrix agardhii representing MFG 5a and MBFG III was generally dominant and reached bloom densities (>62,000 ind ml−1). The multivariate analyses performed showed similar and overlapping results considering both approaches. Nutrients and transparency were the main environmental variables explaining the variance encountered. We conclude that MBFG classification was an adequate, easy-to-handle method for monitoring Lake Lugano. The functional approaches applied enabled the follow-up of potentially toxic Cyanobacteria in Lake Lugano. Further studies should include the estimation of cyanobacteria-derived toxin concentrations in water. We consider that the applicability of the MBFG approach deserves to be further explored as a promising tool for biomonitoring different types of urban water bodies.

Redox-dependent niche differentiation provides evidence for multiple bacterial sources of glycerol tetraether lipids in lakes

Terrestrial paleoclimate archives such as lake sediments are essential for our understanding of the continental climate system and for the modeling of future climate scenarios. However, quantitative proxies for the determination of paleotemperatures are sparse. The relative abundances of certain bacterial lipids, i.e., branched glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers (brGDGTs), respond to changes in environmental temperature, and thus have great potential for climate reconstruction. Their application to lake deposits, however, is hampered by the lack of fundamental knowledge on the ecology of brGDGT-producing microbes in lakes. Here, we show that brGDGTs are synthesized by multiple groups of bacteria thriving under contrasting redox regimes in a deep meromictic Swiss lake (Lake Lugano). This niche partitioning is evidenced by highly distinct brGDGT inventories in oxic vs. anoxic water masses, and corresponding vertical patterns in bacterial 16S rRNA gene abundances, implying that sedimentary brGDGT records are affected by temperature-independent changes in the community composition of their microbial producers. Furthermore, the stable carbon isotope composition (δ13C) of brGDGTs in Lake Lugano and 34 other (peri-)Alpine lakes attests to the widespread heterotrophic incorporation of 13C-depleted, methane-derived biomass at the redox transition zone of mesotrophic to eutrophic lake systems. The brGDGTs produced under such hypoxic/methanotrophic conditions reflect near-bottom water temperatures, and are characterized by comparatively low δ13C values. Depending on climate zone and water depth, lake sediment archives predominated by deeper water/low-13C brGDGTs may provide more reliable records of climate variability than those where brGDGTs derive from terrestrial and/or aquatic sources with distinct temperature imprints.