Delivering resilience to climate impacts on UK freshwater quality: towards national-scale cyanobacterial bloom monitoring and forecasting

2018年的夏季干旱和热浪凸显了英国水资源对当前和未来气候变化的脆弱性。这种脆弱性不仅是由于水量不足，而且由于高温和低冲洗导致蓝藻（也称为蓝藻）大量繁殖造成的水质问题而加剧，特别是在湖泊和水库中。这对整个英国产生了重大影响，包括许多水库的水处理成本上升、一些地区的饮用水供应受到限制、许多休闲沃茨水域关闭、鱼类死亡和几只宠物狗死亡。目前，英国对蓝绿藻的监测非常活跃，范围仅限于英国不到1%的湖泊和水库。这种有限的监测阻碍了有效的管理，并增加了对公众和动物健康构成的风险。然而，最近在使用卫星从太空观测地球的数据以及使用英国公众使用智能手机应用程序Bloomin'Algae收集的数据方面的创新，有可能通过增加监测水体的数量和观察水体的频率来显着改变这一点。地球观测和公民科学领域的这些创新具有真实的潜力，可以为水务公司、环境监管机构、地方当局和公众提供所需的数据和信息，以更好地管理有毒藻类大量繁殖带来的风险。在这项概念验证研究中，我们将展示新卫星数据的力量，包括最近发射到太空的数百颗小型“纳米卫星”的数据，用于监测英国水体中的藻华。我们将通过公众和相关机构和行业工作人员进行的岸基公民观察来加强这一点。我们将调查这两个新的数据来源的结合力量，以确定超过目前英国和世界卫生组织饮用水供应和娱乐活动指南的水华事件的存在。我们还将审查数据的潜力，以提高我们对短期极端气候对英国水质影响的科学理解。这两种方法提供了互补性的空间尺度的网站，可以监测，使我们能够独立地验证结果。与此同时，我们将组建一个科学家团队，他们在使用卫星数据，公民科学，建模和统计方面具有不同的专业知识，与水务公司，英国卫生和环境保护机构以及地方当局代表合作。该工作组将制定一个全国性水华监测和预报服务的蓝图，该服务可纳入并加强其现有的一些监测和报告具有健康、社会或经济影响的环境事件的系统。这可能包括一个系统，向公众和有关机构，如水上运动中心，渔业和兽医实践提供直接通知。这样的气候服务将大大加强英国水务行业、环境机构、公共卫生机构和地方当局对未来气候变化的适应能力。

The summer drought and heatwave in 2018 highlighted the vulnerability of UK water resources to current and future climate change. This vulnerability was not only due to insufficient water quantity, but was exacerbated by water quality issues caused by harmful blooms of blue-green algae (also known as cyanobacteria) that flourished due to the high temperatures and low flushing, particularly in lakes and reservoirs. This had major impacts across the whole of the UK, including higher water treatment costs in many reservoirs, restrictions on drinking water supplies in some regions, closure of many recreational waters, fish kills and the deaths of several pet dogs. Monitoring of blue-green algae in the UK is currently very reactive and limited in scope to <1% of the UK's lakes and reservoirs. This limited monitoring hinders effective management and raises the risks posed to public and animal health. However, recent innovations in the use of data from satellites observing the Earth from space and the use of data collected by members of the UK public using the smartphone app Bloomin'Algae have the potential to change this dramatically by increasing both the number of waterbodies monitored and the frequency at which they are observed. These innovations in earth observation and citizen science have real potential to provide water companies, environmental regulators, local authorities and the public with the data and information they need to better manage the risks posed by toxic blooms of algae.In this proof-of-concept study we will demonstrate the power of new satellite data, including those from hundreds of small 'nanosatellites' recently launched into space, for monitoring algal blooms in waterbodies across the UK. We will augment this with shore-based citizen observations made by members of the public and relevant agency and industry staff. We will investigate the combined power of these two novel sources of data to identify the presence of bloom events that exceed current UK and World Health Organisation guidelines for drinking water supply and recreational activities. We will also review the potential of the data to improve our scientific understanding of the impact of short-term climate extremes on UK water quality. The two approaches provide complementarity in the spatial scales of sites that can be monitored and allow us to verify findings independently. In parallel, we will assemble a team of scientists with diverse expertise in the use of satellite data, citizen science, modelling and statistics to work in collaboration with water utility companies, the UK health and environment protection agencies, and local authority representatives. This working group will establish a blueprint for a nation-wide bloom monitoring and forecasting service that could feed into and augment a number of their existing systems for monitoring and reporting environmental incidents that have health, social or economic impact. This could include a system that provides direct notifications to members of the public and interested bodies, such as watersport centres, fisheries and vet practices. Such a climate service would greatly strengthen the resilience of the UK water industry, environment agencies, public health bodies and local authorities to future climate change.