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    The effect of natural variability on the assessment of ecological status of shallow lakes
    (Eesti Maaülikool, 2018) Tuvikene, Lea; Nõges, Peeter (advisor); Nixdorf, Brigitte (opponent); Ercoli, Fabio (pre-opponent)
    The dissertation contributes to the improvement of large lake monitoring, demonstrating that besides following the class boundaries of ecological status established by law, reliable status estimates of such lakes require profound expert knowledge on ecosystem functioning, and considering the share of natural and human induced factors influencing the ecosystem. WFD defines the status of water bodies by the extent of anthropogenic deviation from the reference conditions, i.e. conditions that should occur at sites of any particular type in the absence of human impact. Ecological status of Estonian large, shallow lakes Peipsi and Võrtsjärv is greatly influenced by direct human activities as well as climate change. For example, the trend of water brownification influencing the whole matter circulation of lakes, results from natural hydrological processes, but also from decreasing atmospheric sulphur deposition – both determining the mobility of humic substances. It is a complicated task to find simple, well-functioning indicators to assess ecological status of water bodies which are influenced by natural factors, such as large water level fluctuations and strong seasonality, more than by human impact. For example, for Lake Võrtsjärv, all common water quality indicators show worse ecological status in periods of low water level despite unchanged human impact. It should also be considered that the influence of changed environmental conditions may become evident with a time lag – after one or even several years. In Lake Võrtsjärv, changes in water surface temperature and water level explain approximately one half of the total changes in values of ecological status indicators. The reliability of status estimates can be significantly increased by statistically correcting the values of status indicators for factors causing natural variability. Analysis of spatial variability of status indicators in Lake Võrtsjärv showed that the permanent sampling station at the deepest site of the lake is representative for more than 90% of the lake area. To improve cost-effectiveness of the state monitoring programme, this sampling site remains the only open water monitoring site at the lake since 2017.