Temporal variation in total phosphorus concentrations revealed from a multidecadal monitoring program on Big Platte Lake, Michigan

Effective water quality management depends on enactment of appropriately designed monitoring programs to reveal current and forecasted conditions. Because water quality conditions are influenced by numerous factors, commonly measured attributes such as total phosphorus (TP) can be highly temporally varying. For highly varying processes, monitoring programs should be long-term and periodic quantitative analyses are needed so that temporal trends can be distinguished from stochastic variation, which can yield insights into potential modifications to the program. Using generalized additive mixed modeling, we assessed temporal (yearly and monthly) trends and quantified other sources of variation (daily and subsampling) in TP concentrations from a multidecadal depth-specific monitoring program on Big Platte Lake, Michigan. Yearly TP concentrations decreased from the late 1980s to late 1990s before rebounding through the early 2000s. At depths of 2.29 to 13.72 m, TP concentrations have cycled around stationary points since the early 2000s, while at the surface and depths ≥ 18.29 concentrations have continued declining. Summer and fall peaks in TP concentrations were observed at most depths, with the fall peak at deeper depths occurring 1 month earlier than shallower depths. Daily sampling variation (i.e., variation within a given month and year) was greatest at shallowest and deepest depths. Variation in subsamples collected from depth-specific water samples constituted a small fraction of total variation. Based on model results, cost-saving measures to consider for the monitoring program include reducing subsampling of depth-specific concentrations and reducing the number of sampling depths given observed consistencies across the program period.