Poster Details
EFFECTS OF CATCHMENT AND LAND COVER ON WATER CHEMISTRY IN HIGH ELEVATION LAKES IN SIERRA NEVADA, CALIFORNIA
A clear pattern of how variation in land cover impacts lake chemistry has yet to be extensively explored, especially in high elevation lakes. To assess the way different terrestrial inputs effect high elevation lake water composition, we analyzed the impact of land cover on water chemistry within 23 different lakes. These lakes were all located in the Sierra Nevada mountain range in California. The watershed area of each lake was delineated using ArcGIS and the corresponding land cover types characterized using the National land Cover Dataset (NLCD 2011). Specifically, we wanted to examine how each lake’s catchment land cover affects chlorophyll-a, dissolved organic carbon, dissolved oxygen, and the ratio of particulate carbon to particulate nitrogen compositions. We expect to see a positive relationship between the ratio of particulate carbon to particulate nitrogen as the percentage of terrestrial vegetative cover increases among the 23 lake sites. Consistent relationships between lake chemistry and land cover types would allow us to predict chemical attributes of other high elevation lakes in the Sierra Nevada, and thus develop a predictive landscape model for the thousands of lakes in the Sierra Nevada that lack sampling data.
Kelly Neal (Primary Presenter/Author), University of California, Davis, kaneal@ucdavis.edu;
Adrianne Smits (Co-Presenter/Co-Author), University of California, Davis, asmits@ucdavis.edu;
Steve Sadro (Co-Presenter/Co-Author), University of California, Davis, ssadro@ucdavis.edu;