Environmental Talk 2014: Lake Project
- Lim Sze Yen
- Nov 6, 2014
- 3 min read
What's Going On Inside The UNMC Lake ?
November 6th, 2014 – University of Nottingham Malaysian Campus. Nature Club has had the opportunity to hold an environment talk and has cordially invited guest speaker Dr. Suzanne McGowan, Head of School of Geography to present her findings of her recent research on the ecological system of the campus lake.
“[The lake] is an iconic image and representative of the University of Nottingham brand.” – Prof Christine Ennew (Provost, UNMC)
Dr. Suzanne along with her team described her research as comprised of three interlinked components; Stakeholder management, Understanding the ecosystem and a Sustainable management plan.
During a survey conducted in April this year, over 50% agreed that the UNMC Lake serves as an enhancement to landscape. However, when given a questionnaire on students’ aspirations for the lake, majority expressed the need for cleaner water, more aquatics, sitting places and greenery amongst other desirable attributes
“If they really need a beautiful and clear lake, consultants or experts must be employed to monitor and manage it because we lack manpower and expertise in lake management” – Sandy Loke (Head of Estates)The provost also stated that she would like cost effective regular monitoring of the lake for proper condition.According to the fingerprints collected, sediment traps showed that the cloudiness in the lake is a result of more than soil alone but the team is uncertain as to where the soil came from as sediment pins showed no sign of soil erosion in the surrounding area.
Sampling was conducted via one of three inflows of water and from cleaning the sediment traps which lead to the detection of Cylindrospermopsis raciborskii – a fresh water cyanobacterium, appearing in a massive 350- 380 million filaments per litre of lake water. The presence of this algal growth results in the orange-coloured lake due to the production of a carotenoid known as aphanizophyll.Dr. Suzanna’s study suggests that algal bloom is mainly fuelled by photosynthesis and nutrient assimilation from the by-product of the process which is glucose. She also explained the detrimental effects of this in terms of depleting oxygen levels and consequently inducing stress to other species in the lake. The increase in pH of water due to carbon dioxide levels from respiration (at night) further triggers danger to aquatics. As a result of its wide coverage on the lake surface, no light is able to penetrate and thus no submerged plants have been able to grow.
In efforts to reduce these conditions, aerator fountains were fixed to increase levels of dissolved oxygen. Flocculation involving clay is also carried out to remove these algae. Other proposed ideas include biomanipulation using zooplanktons, zooplanktivores and piscivores as well as phytoremediation to remove nutrients in the lake by introducing floating plants and emergent plants.Despite that, Dr. Suzanne highlighted that flocculation would be difficult to manage due to the large volume of water and is relatively unsustainable as constant treatment is required. Likewise, biomanipulation has proven to be less successful in warm climates. Therefore, the most ecological method would be phytoremediation as it does not inflict large scale interruptions.
At the end of her speech, a few interesting questions brought up in the Q&A session still remain a mystery; particularly how there are fishes in the lake when the campus authority has never introduced them and also how the ducks have simply vanished. The audience was able to come up with a few theories such as the oil spills that occurred last year and upflow of fishes from a connected river. This event was a great way to increase insight on the ecological issues happening to our lake and discover ways to recover its balance.
For more information, visit https://unmclakeproject.wordpress.com/ and refer to the attached PowerPoint slides.
To view more photos of the event and want to keep updated on upcoming events, visit our FB page. Join us to save our mother earth before its too late !
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