Waldo Lake Research in 2003 By Dr. Mark Sytsma, Dr. John Rueter, Dr. Richard Petersen Dr Roy Koch, Dr. Scott Wells, Richard Miller, Laura Johnson, and Robert Annear Center for Lakes and Reservoirs Department of Environmental Sciences and Resources Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Portland State University Portland, Oregon 97201-0751 May, 2004 Table of Contents Table of Contents..........................................................................................................................................i List of Figures ............................................................................................................................................. ii List of Tables ..............................................................................................................................................vi Acknowledgements................................................................................................................................... vii Introduction................................................................................................................................................. 1 Background ............................................................................................................................................. 2 Location.............................................................................................................................................. 2 Basin Topography and Hydrology...................................................................................................... 2 Vegetation........................................................................................................................................... 4 Geology and Soils ............................................................................................................................... 5 Recent Fire History............................................................................................................................. 8 Historical Chemical and Biological Characterization of Waldo Lake................................................ 9 Current Work ........................................................................................................................................ 11 Bathymetry................................................................................................................................................ 12 Introduction........................................................................................................................................... 12 Methods and Analysis........................................................................................................................... 12 Method overview .............................................................................................................................. 12 Navigational transect setup ............................................................................................................... 12 Data collection.................................................................................................................................. 12 Bottom tracking................................................................................................................................. 14 Conversion of depth to elevation...................................................................................................... 14 Surface interpolation and elevation curve......................................................................................... 14 Results................................................................................................................................................... 14 Conclusions and Recommendations ..................................................................................................... 18 Climate and Hydrology............................................................................................................................. 19 Introduction........................................................................................................................................... 19 Data ....................................................................................................................................................... 19 Inter-annual variation of climate and stream flow................................................................................ 21 Relationship between climate and stream flow................................................................................. 22 Time trends in the data...................................................................................................................... 25 Temporal structure in the inter-annual variability............................................................................ 26 Seasonal variation of climate and stream flow ..................................................................................... 30 Long term water balance of the Waldo Lake Watershed...................................................................... 33 Basin-averaged precipitation............................................................................................................. 34 Time-averaged Water Balance.......................................................................................................... 36 Conclusions ........................................................................................................................................... 37 Recommendations ................................................................................................................................. 38 Optical Characteristics .............................................................................................................................. 39 Light Attenuation.................................................................................................................................. 39 Secchi Transparency............................................................................................................................. 45 Chemical and Physical Characteristics ..................................................................................................... 47 Water Temperature and Dissolved Oxygen.......................................................................................... 48 Detailed 2003 temperature profiling................................................................................................. 52 pH.......................................................................................................................................................... 55 Specific Conductance............................................................................................................................ 57 i Total Dissolved Solids .......................................................................................................................... 58 Acid Neutralizing Capacity (ANC)/Alkalinity..................................................................................... 59 Nutrients................................................................................................................................................ 60 Phosphorous...................................................................................................................................... 60 Nitrogen............................................................................................................................................ 61 Silica.................................................................................................................................................. 61 Biological Characteristics ......................................................................................................................... 64 Phytoplankton Community................................................................................................................... 64 Phytoplankton Primary Productivity..................................................................................................... 75 Chlorophyll-a ........................................................................................................................................ 77 Photosynthetic Efficiency..................................................................................................................... 80 Introduction....................................................................................................................................... 80 Methods and Analysis....................................................................................................................... 82 Results............................................................................................................................................... 84 Discussion......................................................................................................................................... 86 Conclusions and Recommendations ................................................................................................. 91 Zooplankton Community...................................................................................................................... 91 Water Quality Modeling ..........................................................................................................................