Salting our freshwater lakes.

摘要: The highest densities of lakes on Earth are in north temperate ecosystems, where increasing urbanization and associated chloride runoff can salinize freshwaters threaten lake water quality the many ecosystem services provide. However, extent to which salinity may be changing at broad spatial scales remains unknown, leading us first identify patterns then investigate drivers these patterns. Significant decadal trends salinization were identified using a dataset long-term concentrations from 371 North American lakes. Landscape climate metrics calculated for each site demonstrated that impervious land cover was strong predictor Northeast Midwest As little as 1% surrounding increased likelihood salinization. Considering 27% large United States have >1% around their perimeters, potential steady aquatic systems is high. This study predicts will exceed life threshold criterion chronic exposure (230 mg L-1), stipulated by US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), next 50 y if current continue.