Is water age a reliable indicator for evaluating water quality effectiveness of water diversion projects in eutrophic lakes?

Water diversion has been applied increasingly to promote the exchange of lake water and to control eutrophication of lakes. The accelerated water exchange and mass transport by water diversion can usually be represented by water age. But the responses of water quality after water diversion is still disputed. The reliability of using water age for evaluating the effectiveness of water diversion projects in eutrophic lakes should be thereby explored further. Lake Dianchi, a semi-closed plateau lake in China, has suffered severe eutrophication since the 1980s, and it is one of the three most eutrophic lakes in China. There was no significant improvement in water quality after an investment of approximately 7.7 billion USD and numerous project efforts from 1996 to 2015. After the approval of the Chinese State Council, water has been transferred to Lake Dianchi to alleviate eutrophication since December 2013. A three-dimensional hydrodynamic and water quality model and eight scenarios were developed in this study to quantity the influence of this water diversion project on water quality in Lake Dianchi. The model results showed that (a) Water quality (TP, TN, and Chla) could be improved by 13.5-32.2%, much lower than the approximate 50% reduction in water age; (b) Water exchange had a strong positive relationship with mean TP, and mean Chla had exactly the same response to water diversion as mean TN; (c) Water level was more beneficial for improving hydrodynamic and nutrient concentrations than variation in the diverted inflowing water volume; (d) The water diversion scenario of doubling the diverted inflow rate in the wet season with the water level of 1886.5 m and 1887 m in the remaining months was the best water diversion mode for mean hydrodynamics and TP, but the scenario of doubling the diverted inflow rate in the wet season with 1887 m throughout the year was optimum for mean TN and Chla; (e) Water age influenced the effectiveness of water diversion on the improvement in TP, but not in TN and Chla. Therefore, water age solely could not be used to evaluate the restoration of water quality in a eutrophic lake, because geobiochemical processes played a more important role in the growth of algae than did water exchange in Lake Dianchi. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.