The effect of phosphorus removal from sewage on the plankton community in a hypertrophic reservoir

Background: When developing water quality improvement strategies for eutrophic lakes, questions may arise about the relative importance of point sources and nonpoint sources of phosphorus. For example, there is some skepticism regarding the effectiveness of partial reductions in phosphorus loading; because phosphorus concentrations are too high in hypertrophic lakes, in-lake phosphorus concentrations might still remain within typical range for eutrophic lakes even after the reduction of phosphorus loading. For this study, water quality and the phytoplankton and zooplankton communities were monitored in a hypertrophic reservoir (Lake Wangsong) before and after the reduction of phosphorus loading from a point source (a sewage treatment plant) by the installation of a chemical phosphorus-removal process. Results: Before phosphorus removal, Lake Wangsong was classified as hypertrophic with a median phosphorus concentration of $0.232mg\;L^{-1}$ and a median chlorophyll-a concentration of $112mg\;L^{-1}$. The dominant phytoplankton were filamentous cyanobacteria for the most of the ice-free season. Following the installation of the advanced treatment process, phosphorus concentrations were reduced to $81mg\;L^{-1}$, and the N/P atomic ratio increased from 42 to 102. Chlorophyll-a concentrations decreased to $42{\mu}g\;L^{-1}$, and the duration of cyanobacterial dominance was confined to the summer season. Cyanobacteria in spring and autumn were replaced by diatoms and cryptomonads. Filamentous cyanobacteria in summer were replaced by colony-forming unicellular Microcystis spp. It was remarkable that zooplankton biomass increased despite the decrease in phytoplankton biomass, and especially cladoceran zooplankton which increased drastically. These responses to the reduction of point source P loading to Lake Wangsong imply that reducing the point source P loading can have a big impact even when nonpoint sources account for a large fraction of the total annual phosphorus loading. Conclusions: Our results also show that the phytoplankton community can shift to decreased cyanobacterial dominance and the zooplankton community can shift to higher cladoceran dominance, even when phosphorus concentrations remain within the typical range for eutrophic lakes following the reduction of phosphorus loading.