Eutrophication is a challenge for freshwater systems many places globally. In order to fully understand the processes and to mediate the problem, the release of phosphorous (P) from sediments must be better understood.
Tianjin is a Chinese city with almost 16 million inhabitants. The YuQiao Reservoir serves as a main raw water source for the city. In the new study, Bin Zhou and colleagues, studied five sediment cores from the reservoir and looked at sediment characteristics and phosphorous fractions. The sediments have accumulated phosphorous that is now increasingly released to the reservoir, after reduction of anthropogenic phosphorous sources. This might cause problems in the form of algal blooms and further eutrophication, and measures should be taken to prevent this.
Chemistry professor Rolf D. Vogt is a co- author of the study.
Read the paper here (link to paper in Water).