2023 > 03
"Accelerating change to solve the water and sanitation crisis" is the theme for the World Water Day 2023. Within the SITES Water long-term measurement program, data on hydrological, physical, chemical, and biological parameters within lakes and streams across SITES stations is made openly available to the user community to address a broad range of scientific questions relevant to solving the water crisis.
In celebration of World Water Day, the AQUATIC data from LAKE ERKEN has been updated including quality controlled data for 2022. The data covers a broad range of data types on chemical and physical variables for the lake and the streams surrounding it. Extensive time series can be found under the following link:
METEOROLOGY
Meteorological data Malma Island
CHEMISTRY
Lake Chemistry
Stream Chemistry (Filter on all stream sampling points)
LAKE PROFILING
Lake Temperature Profiles (Filter on all water temperature profiles)
Lake YSI Profiles (Filter on all YSI profiles)
WATER BALANCE
Stream Inlet & Outlet discharge (Filter on discharge for In-&Outlet)
Lake Water Level
More data on AQUATIC BIOTA will follow soon, so keep yourself updated on the SITES Data Portal for new data uploads.
Data collected within SITES are freely available and can be used by anyone as long as the data is cited and acknowledged, following the instructions in the SITES data policy.
In March, it is still “low season” at Abisko Scientific Research Station. About ten researchers have been on-site during the winter, but the number will gradually increase during the spring. In May, larger groups will arrive as the field season begins in earnest. They will be at the station all summer, and thus it looks like it will be another intense field season.
Svante Zachrisson is shovelling to get into Kärkevagge cabin (Photo: Thomas Westin)
Work is underway to replace the heating system from direct electricity to geothermal heating. In the summer, three 550-meter-deep holes will be drilled from which the energy will be taken. The goal is for all indoor work to be completed by 31 March. In total, 1,900 square meters of laboratory and office space are affected in the main building. New pipes are being laid into each space, and around 200 radiators are being installed on three floors.
At this time of year, propane and other supplies are transported by snowmobile to the five field huts; the Mire villa in Stordalen, Latnjajaure, Kärkevagge, Jieprenkiedde, and Lullihatjårro. The transports are made by snowmobile during the winter to avoid helicopter transport during the summer. Some shovelling is required to get into the cabins (as pictured).
Browning of surface water, rivers and lakes is a major problem that affects the ecosystem and the water quality. For example, increasing browning reduces biodiversity in lakes by reducing the fish population and therewith the food web. Browning also lowers the recreational value in tourism and requires higher effort to produce clean drinking water. Due to its complexity and the relatively young research field on browning in waters, the governing processes and their interrelationship are not fully understood yet. But to mitigate the effect of browning, these processes need to be understood and suitable measures needs to be taken.
Geophysical measurement setup in the lake Bolmen area
Therefore, two research projects in the lake Bolmen area are ongoing. One is the FORMAS financed Blue innovation project with Lagan water council, Bolmen Research station and Lund University as partners. The second project is the EU Interreg North Sea region Blue transition project with 24 partners from 6 European countries, including the Swedish Geological Survey (SGU), Bolmen Research station/Sydvatten and Lund University. In both projects the purpose is to develop a toolbox for mitigation and verification of methods that have been tested to be efficient for reducing the browning of lakes. It is expected that these measures are transferrable to many other lake systems since the problem is widespread in Sweden as wells as in other countries.
One of the main aims is to establish a good communication channel between the property owners and stakeholders in the Lagan water region. That is done by organizing workshops, for example at Bolmen Research station, and regular reference group meetings with stakeholders. To understand the underground hydrogeological conditions and to adapt it on a large scale, geophysics in combination with other sensors and in-situ investigations will be used. That has been done already for reconnaissance purposes (photo above) to get information, for example, about the thickness of the soil layer and the depth of the bedrock (figure below). After identifying suitable test sites, a monitoring system will be setup to run over several years to investigate the influence of the browning on the hydrogeological system. Based on that, mitigation strategies and measures will be developed and tested in a latter step.
News item was written by Tina Martin - Researcher and project leader at Engineering Geology at Lund University.
Ingrid Sassenhagen has recently started as Research Engineer at SITES Erken Laboratory! Welcome to the SITES Community, Ingrid!
Ingrid Sassenhagen
Ingrid is an aquatic ecologist and studies all things related to phytoplankton. During her PhD project at Lund University, she investigated dispersal patterns and local adaption in the freshwater raphidophyte Gonyostomum semen, the infamous Gubbslem. For the following postdoc positions, she moved to Texas and France, where she worked in the marine ecosystems of the Caribbean and the Southern Ocean. Back in Sweden, this time at Uppsala University, Ingrid worked again with freshwater phytoplankton and investigated fungal parasites that infect algal blooms.
She is excited about contributing to studies of plankton community responses to environmental change in the SITES AquaNet mesocosm facilities. She will help with coordinating the upcoming mesocosm experiments, which will run in parallel at SITES stations at Erken, Bolmen and Skogaryd. Ingrid will also help with the maintenance and installation of the sensors for the mesocosms, prepare materials and chemicals for the experiments, and analyze the resulting data. She is really looking forward to meeting all the other enthusiastic aquatic scientists that will be involved in the experiments. In her free time, she likes to dance salsa and swing, go swimming and sew clothes, but lately she has been spending a lot of time at various playgrounds with her toddler son.
The SITES 2023 Calendar theme is “Data in Focus”. The openly available data produced within SITES and stored on the SITES Data Portal is the “golden thread” of the infrastructure, allowing users access to ecosystem data that covers diverse habitats and climate zones across geographical gradients in Sweden. Each month follow along as we highlight a unique SITES dataset.
At Svartberget Research Station, within the Krycklan catchment, hydrological and biogeochemical monitoring takes place across the watershed. The highly instrumented and monitored watershed creates a field platform for ecosystem research with the possibility to study interactions within and between the different parts of the landscape. The SITES calendar post for March displays a part of the field platform; one example of the 19 total V-Notch weirs and flumes installed across the stream network. The weirs are equipped with sensors to measure, e.g. water temperature and stage height. Additionally, water samples are manually collected at the stream locations throughout the year (i.e. twice a week during spring flood, once a month during winter conditions and every second week, during the rest of the year) for biogeochemical analysis, including chemical variables within the SITES Water Thematic Program.
Link to data: https://meta.fieldsites.se/objects/FE1KELfYkAA3Ch8cGkSIGnfI
The graph displays dissolved organic carbon (DOC, top line), ammonium (NH4, middle line) and phosphate (PO4, bottom line) concentrations measured at Kallkälsbäcken stream measured throughout the year in 2021. The photo shows the V-Notch weir installation at Kallkälsbäcken.
2023 > 03
"Accelerating change to solve the water and sanitation crisis" is the theme for the World Water Day 2023. Within the SITES Water long-term measurement program, data on hydrological, physical, chemical, and biological parameters within lakes and streams across SITES stations is made openly available to the user community to address a broad range of scientific questions relevant to solving the water crisis.
In celebration of World Water Day, the AQUATIC data from LAKE ERKEN has been updated including quality controlled data for 2022. The data covers a broad range of data types on chemical and physical variables for the lake and the streams surrounding it. Extensive time series can be found under the following link:
METEOROLOGY
Meteorological data Malma Island
CHEMISTRY
Lake Chemistry
Stream Chemistry (Filter on all stream sampling points)
LAKE PROFILING
Lake Temperature Profiles (Filter on all water temperature profiles)
Lake YSI Profiles (Filter on all YSI profiles)
WATER BALANCE
Stream Inlet & Outlet discharge (Filter on discharge for In-&Outlet)
Lake Water Level
More data on AQUATIC BIOTA will follow soon, so keep yourself updated on the SITES Data Portal for new data uploads.
Data collected within SITES are freely available and can be used by anyone as long as the data is cited and acknowledged, following the instructions in the SITES data policy.
In March, it is still “low season” at Abisko Scientific Research Station. About ten researchers have been on-site during the winter, but the number will gradually increase during the spring. In May, larger groups will arrive as the field season begins in earnest. They will be at the station all summer, and thus it looks like it will be another intense field season.
Svante Zachrisson is shovelling to get into Kärkevagge cabin (Photo: Thomas Westin)
Work is underway to replace the heating system from direct electricity to geothermal heating. In the summer, three 550-meter-deep holes will be drilled from which the energy will be taken. The goal is for all indoor work to be completed by 31 March. In total, 1,900 square meters of laboratory and office space are affected in the main building. New pipes are being laid into each space, and around 200 radiators are being installed on three floors.
At this time of year, propane and other supplies are transported by snowmobile to the five field huts; the Mire villa in Stordalen, Latnjajaure, Kärkevagge, Jieprenkiedde, and Lullihatjårro. The transports are made by snowmobile during the winter to avoid helicopter transport during the summer. Some shovelling is required to get into the cabins (as pictured).
Browning of surface water, rivers and lakes is a major problem that affects the ecosystem and the water quality. For example, increasing browning reduces biodiversity in lakes by reducing the fish population and therewith the food web. Browning also lowers the recreational value in tourism and requires higher effort to produce clean drinking water. Due to its complexity and the relatively young research field on browning in waters, the governing processes and their interrelationship are not fully understood yet. But to mitigate the effect of browning, these processes need to be understood and suitable measures needs to be taken.
Geophysical measurement setup in the lake Bolmen area
Therefore, two research projects in the lake Bolmen area are ongoing. One is the FORMAS financed Blue innovation project with Lagan water council, Bolmen Research station and Lund University as partners. The second project is the EU Interreg North Sea region Blue transition project with 24 partners from 6 European countries, including the Swedish Geological Survey (SGU), Bolmen Research station/Sydvatten and Lund University. In both projects the purpose is to develop a toolbox for mitigation and verification of methods that have been tested to be efficient for reducing the browning of lakes. It is expected that these measures are transferrable to many other lake systems since the problem is widespread in Sweden as wells as in other countries.
One of the main aims is to establish a good communication channel between the property owners and stakeholders in the Lagan water region. That is done by organizing workshops, for example at Bolmen Research station, and regular reference group meetings with stakeholders. To understand the underground hydrogeological conditions and to adapt it on a large scale, geophysics in combination with other sensors and in-situ investigations will be used. That has been done already for reconnaissance purposes (photo above) to get information, for example, about the thickness of the soil layer and the depth of the bedrock (figure below). After identifying suitable test sites, a monitoring system will be setup to run over several years to investigate the influence of the browning on the hydrogeological system. Based on that, mitigation strategies and measures will be developed and tested in a latter step.
News item was written by Tina Martin - Researcher and project leader at Engineering Geology at Lund University.
Ingrid Sassenhagen has recently started as Research Engineer at SITES Erken Laboratory! Welcome to the SITES Community, Ingrid!
Ingrid Sassenhagen
Ingrid is an aquatic ecologist and studies all things related to phytoplankton. During her PhD project at Lund University, she investigated dispersal patterns and local adaption in the freshwater raphidophyte Gonyostomum semen, the infamous Gubbslem. For the following postdoc positions, she moved to Texas and France, where she worked in the marine ecosystems of the Caribbean and the Southern Ocean. Back in Sweden, this time at Uppsala University, Ingrid worked again with freshwater phytoplankton and investigated fungal parasites that infect algal blooms.
She is excited about contributing to studies of plankton community responses to environmental change in the SITES AquaNet mesocosm facilities. She will help with coordinating the upcoming mesocosm experiments, which will run in parallel at SITES stations at Erken, Bolmen and Skogaryd. Ingrid will also help with the maintenance and installation of the sensors for the mesocosms, prepare materials and chemicals for the experiments, and analyze the resulting data. She is really looking forward to meeting all the other enthusiastic aquatic scientists that will be involved in the experiments. In her free time, she likes to dance salsa and swing, go swimming and sew clothes, but lately she has been spending a lot of time at various playgrounds with her toddler son.
The SITES 2023 Calendar theme is “Data in Focus”. The openly available data produced within SITES and stored on the SITES Data Portal is the “golden thread” of the infrastructure, allowing users access to ecosystem data that covers diverse habitats and climate zones across geographical gradients in Sweden. Each month follow along as we highlight a unique SITES dataset.
At Svartberget Research Station, within the Krycklan catchment, hydrological and biogeochemical monitoring takes place across the watershed. The highly instrumented and monitored watershed creates a field platform for ecosystem research with the possibility to study interactions within and between the different parts of the landscape. The SITES calendar post for March displays a part of the field platform; one example of the 19 total V-Notch weirs and flumes installed across the stream network. The weirs are equipped with sensors to measure, e.g. water temperature and stage height. Additionally, water samples are manually collected at the stream locations throughout the year (i.e. twice a week during spring flood, once a month during winter conditions and every second week, during the rest of the year) for biogeochemical analysis, including chemical variables within the SITES Water Thematic Program.
Link to data: https://meta.fieldsites.se/objects/FE1KELfYkAA3Ch8cGkSIGnfI
The graph displays dissolved organic carbon (DOC, top line), ammonium (NH4, middle line) and phosphate (PO4, bottom line) concentrations measured at Kallkälsbäcken stream measured throughout the year in 2021. The photo shows the V-Notch weir installation at Kallkälsbäcken.
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