Strategies to manage toxic cyanobacterial blooms in lakes: remote sensing, modelling and cost benefit analysis

蓝藻（蓝绿藻）通常在英国静止和缓慢流动的淡水中产生大量种群。它们可能产生毒素，通过摄入和皮肤接触对人类和动物造成健康风险。并不是所有的蓝藻水华都会产生毒素，毒素的存在只能通过收集样本并将其带到实验室来确认。从公共卫生的角度来看，监测在很大程度上是反应性的，而不是积极主动的，几乎没有预警能力。该提案旨在制定和评估一种基于遥感的方法，以提供有毒蓝藻发展的早期预警，从而在风险评估框架内保护健康。校准（RS）程序将进行使用实际的蓝藻毒素分析在2个高资源英国淡水与历史的年度水华生产。该提案以现有的建模工作为基础，开发一个危险评估工具，以确定可能因生产有毒蓝藻而造成危险的水体，并模拟气候变化对湖泊中潜在有毒蓝藻生产的影响。一个关键的问题是了解导致蓝藻毒素产生的环境因素，这在提案中得到了解决。沿着监测有毒水华的成本效益分析，讨论了直接和间接接触毒素对人类健康的风险。

Cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) commonly produce mass populations in UK still- and slow-moving freshwaters. They may generate toxins which present health risks to humans and animals via ingestion and skin contact. Not all cyanobacterial blooms produce toxins, and the presence of toxins can only be confirmed by collecting samples and taking them to the laboratory. From a public health perspective monitoring has been largely reactionary and not proactive and little early warning capability exists However, recent developments in remote sensing techniques have shown promise in the rapid (and reliable) detection of blooms. This proposal is designed to develop and evaluate an approach based on remote sensing (RS) to providing early warning of toxic cyanobacterial development to protect health within a risk assessment framework. Calibration of the (RS) procedure would be carried out using actual cyanotoxin analysis at 2 high-resource UK freshwaters with a history of annual bloom production. The proposal builds on existing modelling work to develop a hazard assessment tool to identify likely water bodies that may pose a hazard from the production toxic cyanobacteria and model the influence of climate change on potentially toxic cyanobacteria production in lakes. A critical question relates to understanding the environmental factors leading to cyanotoxin production and this is addressed within the proposal. The human health risk from direct and indirect exposure to the toxins is addressed along with cost-benefit analysis of monitoring for toxic blooms.