Paleolimnology as a Tool to Achieve Environmental Sustainability in the Anthropocene: An Overview

Abstract

Lacustrine sediment accumulation provides meaningful and diverse long-term records of environmental change. This overview highlights the usefulness of the paleolimnological approach in evaluating the magnitude and direction of human-induced environmental change in lakes and their catchments. Because of the services they provide, freshwater ecosystems have always been significantly affected by human activities. However, the rate and extent of human-induced change in continental freshwaters and their catchments has considerably increased since the beginning of industrialization (mid-18th century), and are even more pronounced since the advent of the "Great Acceleration" (since the mid-20th century). Global change, including climate and landscape changes, loss of biodiversity, species introductions and the spread of pollutants, leave traces in lake sediment archives that provide valuable long-term information with which to evaluate and quantify past environmental changes. This paper outlines how the knowledge gleaned from an interdisciplinary paleolimnological approach can benefit the development of mitigation and adaptation measures to current global change at various latitudes.

First human impacts and responses of aquatic systems: A review of palaeolimnological records from around the world

“…In addition to diatom species composition (Fritz et al, 2000;Gell et al, 2005a;MacGregor et al, 2005, Schallenberg andSaulnier-Talbot, 2016), shifts in palaeosalinity have also been inferred from strontium content of ostracods (Chivas et al, 1985), chironomid species composition , and cladocerans, in particular Alona circumfibriata, an indicator of enhanced salinity (Graham et al, 2016).…”

Climate Change and Monitoring of Temperate Lakes

“…There are many examples of successful introductions of fish species, from a human point of view. What the original state was can to some extent be illuminated by means of sediment analysis, as organisms with scales, like planktonic crustaceans, are preserved [35,36]. The state should be stable, if not in a mal state, and spring and autumn circulation turning the water column to supply the deep water with oxygen should take place regularly.…”

Hotspots of biotic compositional change in lakes along vast latitudinal transects in northern Canada

“…As integrators of autochthonous production, as well as allochthonous inputs from their terrestrial and atmospheric catchments, lakes record whole‐landscape changes (Williamson, Saros, Vincent, & Smol, ). Their sediments thus constitute multifaceted natural archives which enable assessments of environmental variation at different spatial and temporal scales (reviewed in Saulnier‐Talbot, ). To better understand and predict the fate of freshwaters in a rapidly changing environment, baseline information and knowledge of the major variables driving the distribution of aquatic biota are essential.…”