Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units Program: Massachusetts
Education, Research and Technical Assistance for Managing Our Natural Resources

Massachusetts Project


Rethinking lake management for invasive plants under future climate: Sensitivity of lake ecosystems to winter water level drawdowns

August 2020 - December 2024


Personnel

Participating Agencies

  • U.S. Geological Survey

Small lakes are important to local economies as sources of water supply and places of recreation. Commonly, lakes are considered more desirable for recreation if they are free of the thick weedy vegetation, often comprised of invasive species, that grows around the lake edge; this vegetation makes it difficult to launch boats and swim. In order to reduce this vegetation, a common technique in the US northeast and midwest is a ‘winter drawdown’ (WD). In a WD, the lake level is artificially lowered (via controls in a dam) during the winter to expose shoreline vegetation to freezing conditions, thereby killing them and preserving recreational value of the lake. However, this practice can impact water quality (including prevalence of harmful algal blooms) and native aquatic plants and animals in lakes. Moreover, studies show that WDs are not always effective at killing nuisance and invasive plants. Almost no research has been done to study how WDs interact with climate; wet years, droughts, and heavy snow winters will all have different effects on the effectiveness of the WD at killing vegetation and the impacts on lake ecosystems. This research will specifically investigate WD standard practices and understand how, when, and why WDs can be better managed in differing climates. Further, we will map WD lakes across the entire northeast and midwest regions for the first time, providing policy makers with a first-ever estimate of the total number of WD lakes, the total amount of water released by these lakes (via new hydrology models we will build), and the prevalence of harmful algal blooms. This research will give state and local governments and lake managers a much-needed scientific basis for managing lakes, to ideally to optimize water quality and macrophytes for both human use and ecosystem integrity under future climates.

Research Publications Publication Date
Kumar, A., A.H. Roy, K. Andreadis, X. He, and C. Butler. 2024. LakeLevel Tracker: A Google Earth Engine-based web application for characterizing lake water levels. LakeLine 43(4): 21-25. | Download | Publisher Website January 2024
Kumar, A. A.H. Roy, K. Andreadis, X. He, and C. Butler. 2024. A multi-sensor approach to characterize winter water level drawdown patterns in lakes. Remote Sensing 16:947. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs16060947 | Publisher Website March 2024
He, Xinchen, K. Andreadis, A.H. Roy, A. Kumar, and C. Butler. 2023. Developing a hydrological modeling framework for lake water level drawdown management. Journal of Environmental Management 345: 118744. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2023.118744 | Download | Publisher Website September 2023
Presentations Presentation Date
He, X., K. Andreadis, T. Langhorst, A.H. Roy, and A. Kumar. 2024. DeepIce: A deep-learning reconstructed lake ice cover reanalysis dataset for lakes in the Northern Hemisphere. American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, 9-13 December 2024, Washington, DC. December 2024
He, X., K. Andreadis, C. Butler, A. Kumar, and A.H. Roy. 2024. Estimating 40-year daily lake ice cover under the climate change for northern temperate lakes. Northeast Aquatic Biologists Conference, 14-16 February 2024, Fairlee, Vermont. February 2024
He, X., K. Andreadis, C. Butler, A. Kumar, and A.H. Roy. 2023. Estimating 40-year daily lake ice cover for 980,000 lakes in the Northern temperate zone. American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, 11-15 December 2023, San Francisco, CA. December 2023
Type Citation Publication Date
Data Release He, X., Carmignani, J., Andreadis, K., Roy, A., Kumar, A., and Butler, K., 2023, Developing a stochastic hydrological model for informing lake water level drawdown management: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P94NQFCF. July 2023
Software Release He, X., Andreadis, K., Roy, A., Kumar, A., and Butler, C. 2023. A repository of hydrological modeling framework for lake drawdown management (HMF-Lake). Version 1.0.0; U.S. Geological Survey software release. Reston, VA. https://doi.org/10.5066/P9C8BVY2 June 2023