Near-term, iterative ecological forecasts with quantified uncertainty have great potential for improving lake and reservoir management. For example, if managers received a forecast indicating a high likelihood of impending impairment, they could make decisions today to prevent or mitigate poor water quality in the future. Increasing the number of automated, realtime freshwater forecasts used for management requires integrating interdisciplinary expertise to develop a framework that seamlessly links data, models, and cyberinfrastructure, as well as collaborations with managers to ensure that forecasts are embedded into decision-making workflows. The goal of this study is to advance the implementation of near-term, iterative ecological forecasts for freshwater management. We first provide an overview of FLARE (Forecasting Lake And Reservoir Ecosystems), a forecasting framework we developed and applied to a drinking water reservoir to assist water quality management, as a potential opensource option for interested users. We used FLARE to develop scenario forecasts simulating different water quality interventions to inform manager decision-making. Second, we share lessons learned from our experience developing and running FLARE over 2 years to inform other forecasting projects. We specifically focus on how to develop, implement, and maintain a forecasting system used for active management. Our goal is to break down the barriers to forecasting for freshwater researchers, with the aim of improving lake and reservoir management globally.

 We created a real-time iterative lake water temperature forecasting system that uses sensors, data assimilation, and hydrodynamic modeling  Our water temperature forecasting system quantifies uncertainty in each daily forecast and is open-source  16-day future forecasted temperatures were within 1.4℃ of observations over 16 months in a reservoir case study

We created a near-term iterative lake water temperature forecasting system that uses 13 sensors, data assimilation, and hydrodynamic modeling 14 15 • FLARE quantifies the uncertainty in each daily forecast and provides an open-source, 16 generalizable system for water quality forecasting 17 18• 16-day forecasted temperatures were within 0.91℃ over 100 days in a reservoir case Abstract 22 Freshwater ecosystems are experiencing greater variability due to human activities, necessitating 23 new tools to anticipate future water quality. In response, we developed and operationalized a 24 near-term iterative water temperature forecasting system (FLARE -Forecasting Lake And 25 Reservoir Ecosystems) that is generalizable for lakes and reservoirs. FLARE is composed of: 26 water quality and meteorology sensors that wirelessly stream data, a data assimilation algorithm 27 that uses sensor observations to update predictions from a hydrodynamic model and calibrate 28 model parameters, and an ensemble-based forecasting algorithm to generate forecasts that 29 include uncertainty. Importantly, FLARE quantifies the contribution of different sources of 30 uncertainty (parameters, driver data, initial conditions, and process) to each daily forecast of 31 water temperature at multiple depths. We applied FLARE to a temperate reservoir during a 100-32 day period that encompassed stratified and mixed thermal conditions and found that daily 33 forecasted water temperatures were on average within 0.91℃ at all depths of the reservoir over a 34 16-day forecast horizon. FLARE successfully predicted the onset of fall turnover eight days in 35 advance, and identified meteorology driver data and downscaling as the dominant sources of 36 forecast uncertainty. Overall, FLARE provides an open-source and easily-generalizable system 37 for water quality forecasting for lakes and reservoirs to improve management. 39Lake Model, Water temperature 41 45 freshwater ecosystems, which have been more degraded than any other ecosystem on the planet 46 [Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005], are seeking new tools to anticipate future change and 47 ensure clean water for drinking, fisheries, irrigation, industry, and recreation [Brookes et al. 48 2014]. 49 In response to this need, near-term iterative ecological forecasting has emerged as a 50 solution to provide stakeholders, managers, and policy-makers crucial information about future 51 ecosystem conditions [Clark et al. 2001, Dietze et al. 2018, Luo et al. 2011. Here, we define a 52 near-term iterative forecast as a projection of future ecosystem states with fully-specified 53 uncertainties, generated from predictive models that can be constantly updated with new data as 54 they become available [Clark et al. 2001]. Importantly, a near-term iterative forecast is not 55 created from merely one ecosystem simulation, but an ensemble of simulations that enable 56 quantification of the uncertainty in the forecast contributed by different sources [i.e., parameters, 57 driver data, initi...

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