Floods, fires and phytoplankton: some perspectives on water quality in the Gippsland Lakes

Perran Cook; Jonathan Smith

doi:10.1071/RS23020

RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)

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Floods, fires and phytoplankton: some perspectives on water quality in the Gippsland Lakes

Perran Cook

^A ^* and Jonathan Smith ^B

+ Author Affiliations

- Author Affiliations

^A School of Chemistry, Monash University, Clayton, Vic. 3800, Australia.

^B Consultant Biologist, Metung, Vic. Australia.

^* Correspondence to: perran.cook@monash.edu

Handling Editor: Bill Birch

Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria 136, RS23020 https://doi.org/10.1071/RS23020

Submitted: 27 October 2023 Accepted: 6 March 2024 Published: 11 June 2024

© 2024 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of the Royal Society of Victoria. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)

Abstract

The Gippsland Lakes form Australia’s largest estuary and suffer periodic blooms of toxic cyanobacteria that close the waterway for recreation and fishing. Here we discuss the underlying causes and sequence of events that lead to bloom formation, and the consequences as well as the history of these blooms prior to European colonisation. Efforts to prevent blooms have focused on catchment nutrient reduction efforts and we believe this is the most sensible approach, albeit one that is costly and long term.

Keywords: algal bloom, cyanobacteria, diatom, dinoflagellate, Gippsland Lakes, nitrogen, Nodularia, phosphorus.

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