Researchers began measuring the water clarity in Lake Tahoe 40 years ago, and for the first time, University of California (UC) Davis scientists have reported a slowing in clarity decline.
Using sophisticated monitoring and factoring out annual precipitation effects, UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center scientists have reported that the rate of water clarity decline has been slowing since 2001.
"From 1968 to 2000 there was a near-continuous decline in lake clarity," said Geoffrey Schladow, a UC Davis civil and environmental engineering professor and Tahoe Environmental Research Center director. "But since 2001, we have had seven years in which the clarity has consistently been better than the long-term trend would have predicted. This is unprecedented."
Through the Tahoe Environmental Improvement Program, launched in 1997, government agencies, residents and business owners have invested more than $500 million in reducing local storm runoff. "Our entire community shares the credit for these very encouraging new findings," said Tahoe Regional Planning Agency Executive Director John Singlaub. "Years of investments in reducing runoff to the lake have slowed the clarity decline. Now we must continue those efforts to clearly reverse the decline and to meet our long-term clarity goals."
For more information, visit www.news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=8660.
Source: UC Davis
