Limnology of Pampean Lakes

SÁNCHEZ, MARÍA LAURA; SCHIAFFINO, MARÍA ROMINA; FONTANARROSA, SOLEDAD; ALLENDE, LUZ

Pampean Lakes

Springer Nature

Año: 2023; p. 1 - 14

The Pampa plain is located in the central part of Argentina. This region shows heterogeneityin its soils and climate, and has been subjected to high anthropic pressure, being dominated byagriculture and cattle breeding. It hosts thousands of permanent shallow lakes that are characterized aspolymictic, naturally eutrophic or hypereutrophic, and slightly alkaline. Currently, most of them are ina phytoplankton-turbid regime with a high abundance of phytoplankton. Some lakes remain in avegetated-clear regime, dominated by submerged macrophytes, and others are in an inorganic-turbid regime with high concentrations of inorganic suspended solids. Factors acting at different scales (local, landscape and regional) interact resulting in the current characteristics of these shallow lakes.We found that the key drivers of phytoplankton chlorophyll a concentration (Chla) in these aquaticsystems are total nitrogen (TN) and the percentage of crops in their surrounding area. Managementstrategies to avoid or diminish the development of anthropic activities - in particular agriculture - inthe nearby zones of the lakes should be established to mitigate the deterioration of these shallowlakes.