Global solutions to regional problems: Collecting global expertise to address the problem of harmful cyanobacterial blooms. A Lake Erie case study

Abstract

In early August 2014, the municipality of Toledo, OH (USA) issued a 'do not drink' advisory on their water supply directly affecting over 400,000 residential customers and hundreds of businesses (Wilson, 2014). This order was attributable to levels of microcystin, a potent liver toxin, which rose to 2.5 mg L1 in finished drinking water. The Toledo crisis afforded an opportunity to bring together scientists from around the world to share ideas regarding factors that contribute to bloom formation and toxigenicity, bloom and toxin detection as well as prevention and remediation of bloom events. These discussions took place at an NSF-and NOAA-sponsored workshop at Bowling Green State University on April 13 and 14, 2015. In all, more than 100 attendees from six countries and 15 US states gathered together to share their perspectives. The purpose of this review is to present the consensus summary of these issues that emerged from discussions at the Workshop. As additional reports in this special issue provide detailed reviews on many major CHAB species, this paper focuses on the general themes common to all blooms, such as bloom detection, modeling, nutrient loading, and strategies to reduce nutrients. KeywordsCyanobacteria, CHAB, Lake Erie, Microcystin, Phosphorus, Nitrogen In early August 2014, the municipality of Toledo, OH (USA) issued a 'do not drink' advisory on their water supply directly affecting over 400,000 residential customers and hundreds of businesses (Wilson, 2014).This order was attributable to levels of microcystin, a potent liver toxin, which rose to 2.5 mg L À1 in finished drinking water. The Toledo crisis afforded an opportunity to bring together scientists from around the world to share ideas regarding factors that contribute to bloom formation and toxigenicity, bloom and toxin detection as well as prevention and remediation of bloom events. These discussions took place at an NSF-and NOAA-sponsored workshop at Bowling Green State University on April 13 and 14, 2015. In all, more than 100 attendees from six countries and 15 US states gathered together to share their perspectives. The purpose of this review is to present the consensus summary of these issues that emerged from discussions at the Workshop. As additional reports in this special issue provide detailed reviews on many major CHAB species, this paper focuses on the general themes common to all blooms, such as bloom detection, modeling, nutrient loading, and strategies to reduce nutrients. ß

Toxic cyanobacteria and cyanotoxins in European waters – recent progress achieved through the CYANOCOST Action and challenges for further research

“…A truly holistic approach will need to be taken at all levels to apply strategies leading to real solutions and to develop particular managerial approaches and risk mitigation measures (Bullerjahn et al, 2016;Ibelings et al, 2016). This section aims to summarize some of the open issues and knowledge gaps which require attention in order to strengthen capabilities for the management of toxic blooms in the future.…”

Intercomparison of Approaches to the Empirical Line Method for Vicarious Hyperspectral Reflectance Calibration

“…In this application, the question of interest is to identify the constituents present in the optically complex waters of the Western Basin of Lake Erie. This area develops a perennial CyanoHAB bloom that initiates in the late spring or early summer, depending on the level of runoff to the system (Stumpf et al, 2012;Bullerjahn et al, 2016). In general, the bloom is larger and starts earlier during wet years, and is smaller in dry years (Stumpf et al, 2012).…”

Nitrogen cycling in Sandusky Bay, Lake Erie: oscillations between strong and weak export and implications for harmful algal blooms

“…Lake Erie, in particular, has been subject to increased incidence and expansion of cyanobacterial HABs (cHABs) in recent years (Michalak et al, 2013;Ho and Michalak, 2015;Bullerjahn et al, 2016). These blooms are dominated by cyanobacteria that accumulate the powerful hepatotoxin, microcystin (Carmichael and Boyer, 2016).…”