The project in a nutshell

In this interdisciplinary project, we investigate the dynamic of primary production (PP) in Lake Geneva and other large lakes of Switzerland where phosphorous levels have declined drastically over the past decades. However, the resulting trends and variations of PP in space and time are not well understood. Our goals are (1) to improve and develop methods that quantify PP and demonstrate its spatiotemporal variability, (2) to identify the physical and biogeochemical drivers of PP from daily to annual time scale, and (3) to explain unexpected high PP in Lake Geneva despite decreasing nutrient levels.

Subprojects:

• Hyperspectral water optical properties to understand which processes shape PP: Camille Minaudo.
• PP role in the overall lake metabolism from in-situ oxygen and carbon dioxide data: Hannah Chmiel.
• Transport processes and mixing mechanisms and their role for PP: Bieito Fernández Castro.
• Modelling long-term PP patterns and phytoplankton growth dynamics in lakes: Shubham Krishna.
• Effect of turbulence and PP on dioxide fluxes at the lake-atmosphere interface: Sebastiano Piccolroaz.

Team members

Back to Past Projects