Geographic Analysis of the Vulnerability of U.S. Lakes to Cyanobacterial Blooms under Future Climate

Cyanobacteria blooms are an increasing concern in U.S. freshwaters. Such blooms can produce nuisance conditions, deplete oxygen, and alter the food chain, and in some cases they may produce potent toxins, although many factors may modulate the relationships between biomass and toxin production. Cyanobacterial blooms are in turn associated with nutrient enrichment and warm water temperatures. Climate change is expected to increase water temperatures and, in many areas, surface runoff that can transport nutrient loads to lakes. While some progress has been made in short-term prediction of cyanobacterial bloom and toxin risk, the long-term projections of which lakes will become more vulnerable to such events as a result of climate change is less clear because of the complex interaction of multiple factors that affect bloom probability. We address this question by reviewing the literature to identify risk factors that increase lake vulnerability to cyanobacterial blooms and evaluating how climate change may alter these factors across the sample of conterminous U.S. lakes contained in the 2007 National Lakes Assessment. Results provide a national-scale assessment of where and in which types of lakes climate change will likely increase the overall risk of cyanobacterial blooms, rather than finer-scale prediction of expected cyanobacterial and toxin levels in individual lakes. This information can be used to guide climate change adaptation planning, including monitoring and management efforts to minimize the effects of increased cyanobacterial prevalence.