User:Natureab30/sandbox Falling Creek Reservoir Ecology

I will be talking about Falling Creek Reservoir that seems not to be well studied but can be an important lake to understand for many scientific reasons. Falling Creek Reservoir is located in Vinton, Virginia; even though Falling Creek Reservoir is not as big as other lakes, every lake has a purpose and history to it.Falling Creek Reservoir was constructed in the 1890s. The water resource was used in the city of Roanoke for fire hydrants, troughs for horses, and drinking water for citizens in 1897 after it was granted to Vinton-Roanoke Water Company. Interestingly one of the drinking fountains, specifically the Dog Mountain Fountain, is still used today in Roanoke City Market. Further years Western Virginia-Roanoke Water Works Company became part of it also. In 2010 Falling Creek Reservoir was rehabilitated. The surface area is 0.12 km² with the maximum depth of 9.3m .This reservoir holds around 322 ml of water when completely full and covers 8.5 hectares. A recent study in 2017 involving associate professor Cayelan Carey, Department of Biological Sciences, at Virginia Tech explains the relationship between organic carbon and oxygen by experimenting Falling Creek Reservoir. Cayelan Carey is one of the few researchers who studies Falling Creek Reservoir with her team and received a one million grant from National Science Foundation. The purpose of the grant was to do a real-time water forecasting system for the reservoir to give predictions of the freshwater. With the help Cayelan and her team's data, they figure out ways to produce the best quality of water for their local consumers. Not only is this benefiting the science community by learning the chemistry, physics and biological aspects in smaller water ecosystem but also in social science aspect to help out and communicate with the community, looking ahead of the future. This particular project name is called the smart reservoir project.

Even though Falling Creek Reservoir is a small warm monomictic system, the reservoir provides drinking water for local residents. Also, it is considered a new research site within Global Lake Ecological Observatory Network (GLEON network). The reservoir has two installed systems in the water column that are engineered to manipulate both oxygen concentrations and stratification. Owners and operators for Falling Creek Reservoir, Western Virginia Water Authority (WVWA) have noticed an increase in Cyanobacteria blooms, causing the taste and odor problems. Specifically, Cyanobacteria, sometimes known as blue green algae, are diverse groups of prokaryotic bacteria. Understanding them is important because they're a risk to humans and animals because they produce toxins that cause skin allergic reactions and stomach disturbances. A recent paper with Rousso (2020) says that Cyanobacteria can potentially reduce biodiversity and discoloration to freshwater ecosystems. Installing systems as surface mixers helps control the growth of cyanobacteria which are one of the main organism problems in reservoirs. Mixing systems for reservoirs benefits because limits lighting on cyanobacteria because increased depth of mixing. There is also alternate by adding specific chemicals to control the cyanobacteria but that approach isn't safe for freshwater ecosystems.

Due to the history of low quality and odor problem of Falling Creek Reservoir, WVWA requested Solar Bee, Inc installed a “solar-powered, up-flow long-distance circulator” and this particular unit runs 24 hours a day and rated 10,000 gallons per min. Parts of the design withdraws water and hypolimnetic oxygenation for the control of cyanobacteria. In 2012, the installed hypolimnetic oxygenation system was used to increase oxygen concentrations without altering the temperature or thermal stratification of the reservoir. However in one of Carey (2018) studies, the crew and her studied the Carbon Cycling and activated and deactivated the hypolimnetic oxygenation system during the 2014 summer stratified season. Specifically from June to October and from there they were abled to monitor 3 times a week the organic carbon concentrations, oxygen concentrations, thermal structure, and water budget. An unique formula used to see the changes of organic carbon over time of the study was "dOC/dt=Allochthony+Autochthony–Respiration–Burial–Export". Through their study scenarios with the oxygen concentrations, the study suggested that lakes and reservoirs are increasing hypolimnetic anoxia because of climate change and human factors.

2014 successful report