Rapid decline of dissolved nitrogen in Finnish lakes

Since 1960s, phosphorus (P) has been considered to be most often the limiting factor for algal growth in freshwater lakes. Due to that, pollution control measures have been targeted to reduce P loading to lakes. In many countries these efforts have been successful: the P loadings, particularly through municipal waste waters have been reduced substantially, which has resulted in reduced P concentration of lake waters, and improvements in ecological quality of numerous lakes. Nitrogen reductions in wastewater treatment plants have started only in very recent years, and usually only in cities along the seashore. Analysis of the long-term lake monitoring data in Finland show a sharp decline of dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN, expressed as a sum of NO2–N, NO3–N and NH4–N) during the 1990s. Most of these lakes are oligotrophic lakes with low human impact. Due to this, the relative contribution of air-borne nitrogen loading (deposition directly to the lake surface) is often higher than in lakes located in densely populated or in intensive agricultural regions. The DIN deposition monitoring results show approximately a 40% reduction during the same period as the decreasing DIN trend is observed in lakes. These trends in deposition can probably be explained by reductions in nitrogen emissions in Europe, in connection to air pollution control conventions, and in Eastern Europe also in connection to economical collapse at the beginning of 1990s. In many of the lakes with a significant decreasing trend, DIN concentrations in late summer are approaching very low levels (<20 μg l−1), indicating that nitrogen is possibly limiting algal growth at least seasonally. The observed trends are an example of how pollution control measures may result in a quick response, in this case unexpected, though not necessarily undesirable.