Assessing impact of COVID-19 pandemic on water quality in Canadian lakes to facilitate upcoming water resources planning and management

在加拿大，改善水质是一个日益令人关切的问题，这主要是由于水管理不善、农业做法和城市发展造成的。与水质有关的问题，由于农业做法是一个重要的因素方面的营养物和污染物的贡献加载到水生系统作为一个结果，点源和非点源活动。COVID-19疫情结束后，水质问题仍将是加拿大的一个严峻挑战。一个重要的问题是，我们可以从这场大流行病中学到什么，然后应用于我们的农业水管理做法，以解决加拿大各种各样的水质问题。这就需要基于当前观测和未来设想的科学成果的科学政策，这需要各级政府和学术部门之间的明确沟通。 与全球许多国家一样，加拿大受到COVID-19疫情的严重影响。疫情严重影响了加拿大（和全球）的农业活动。预计由于种植劳动力短缺以及运营成本增加，农民将比正常情况下少种植约40%。此外，工业活动亦受到疫情影响。因此，在疫情期间，农业和工业活动的减少可能会影响水质，因为化肥的使用量将减少，分解的农作物残留物减少，农业和工业废物减少。然而，仍有时间避免水质的最坏影响，从COVID-19中吸取的经验教训有助于解决这一关键的国家问题，并为未来的水资源管理规划活动提供信息。本研究的目的是了解这些农业和工业活动之间的联系，水质（即藻华生长，Chl-a）和COVID-19爆发期间的生态系统影响，可以选择该年作为基准年，可以评估未来的负荷减少，以实现新的两国目标，以帮助为未来的水管理计划和决策提供有用的信息。

Improving water quality is a growing concern in Canada, which mainly derives from poor water management, agricultural practices and urban development. Problems associated with water quality due to agricultural practices are an important factor with respect to nutrient and pollutant contribution loadings into an aquatic system as a result of point source and non-point source activities. When the COVID-19 pandemic is over, water quality problems will still be a critical challenge in Canada. An important question is what can be learned from the pandemic that we can subsequently apply in our agricultural water management practices to address the diverse array of water quality issues in Canada. This requires science-based policies based on scientific outcomes of current observations and future scenarios, which require clear communication between various levels of government and academic sectors. Like many countries worldwide, Canada has been significantly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The outbreak has significantly impacted agricultural activity in Canada (and worldwide). It is expected that farmers will plant approximately 40 percent less compared to what they would normally plant due to a shortage of labor for planting, as well as higher costs of operation. Moreover, industrial activities have also been affected by the pandemic. Therefore, during the pandemic, the decrease in agricultural and industrial activities is likely to affect water quality since there will be a decrease in the use of fertilizers, a decrease in decomposed crop residues, and a decrease in agricultural and industrial waste. However, there is still time to avoid the worst impacts of water quality, and lessons learned from COVID-19 can be helpful to address this critical national issue and provide information for future water management planning activities. The aim of this research is to understand the linkages between these agricultural and industrial activities, water quality (i.e. in terms of algal bloom growth, Chl-a) and ecosystem impacts during the COVID-19 outbreak, which can be selected as a baseline year against which future loading reductions toward the new binational targets could be evaluated to help provide useful information for future water management plans and decision-making.