Assessing the Contribution of the Environmental Parameters to Eutrophication with the Use of the “PaD” and “PaD2” Methods in a Hypereutrophic Lake

Ekaterini Hadjisolomou, Konstantinos Stefanidis, George Papatheodorou and Evanthia Papastergiadou
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Ekaterini Hadjisolomou: Laboratory of Marine Geology and Physical Oceanography, Department of Geology, Patras University, Patras 26504, Greece
Konstantinos Stefanidis: Department of Biology, University of Patras-University Campus Rio, Patras 26500, Greece
George Papatheodorou: Laboratory of Marine Geology and Physical Oceanography, Department of Geology, Patras University, Patras 26504, Greece
Evanthia Papastergiadou: Department of Biology, University of Patras-University Campus Rio, Patras 26500, Greece

IJERPH, 2016, vol. 13, issue 8, 1-14

Abstract: Lake Pamvotis (Greece) is a shallow hypereutrophic lake with a natural tendency to eutrophication. Several restoration measures were applied, but with no long-term success. To examine the causes for this an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) was created in order to simulate the chlorophyll- a (Chl- a ) levels and to investigate the role of the associated environmental parameters. The ANN managed to simulate with good correlation the simulated Chl- a and can be considered as a reliable predictor. The relative importance of the environmental parameters to the simulated Chl- a was calculated with the use of the “Partial Derivatives” (“PaD”) sensitivity method. The water temperature (WT) and soluble reactive phosphorus (SRP) had the highest relative importance, with values of 50% and 17%, respectively. The synergistic effect of the paired parameters was calculated with the use of the “PaD2” algorithm. The SRP-WT paired parameter was the most influential, with a relative contribution of 22%. The ANN showed that Lake Pamvotis is prone to suffer the effects of climatic change, because of the major contribution of WT. The ANN also revealed that combined nutrients reduction would improve water quality status. The ANN findings can act as an advisory tool regarding any restoration efforts.

Keywords: Artificial Neural Network; eutrophication; lake; environmental parameter; “PaD” method; “PaD2” method (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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