In the coming decades, the Pacific Northwest will continue to experience climate-induced temperature increases and seasonal changes in precipitation. These landscape-level changes may alter existing relationships between water quality in freshwater ecosystems and the biological communities that inhabit them. To proactively manage freshwater systems, current management efforts need to adapt to remain effective. However, one of the challenges for many freshwater ecosystems is the lack of long-term, historical data on the physical, chemical and biological components of a system that can help resource managers forecast how that system will change as the climate changes.

 Lake Whatcom, in Bellingham, Washington, has been the subject of long-term water quality monitoring since the 1960s. Though it has a rich historical dataset, forecasting the future climate vulnerability of this ecosystem is critical to enable proactive management efforts for the joint Lake Whatcom Management Program. In collaboration with the City of Bellingham, Whatcom County, and the Lake Whatcom Water and Sewer District, Alicia will take both a retrospective and prospective approach to understanding relationships among climate, water quality and biological communities in Lake Whatcom. She will use long-term monitoring data from Lake Whatcom to establish what types of historical, climate-driven patterns occurred within the lake. She will use these historical relationships and projected climate trends to forecast lake water temperature changes under multiple regional climate scenarios. Additionally, Alicia will assess the lake’s suitability, under various climate scenarios, for a focal group of native, established invasive, and potential invasive species using species-level thermal tolerances.

This research will improve our understanding of the relationships among the physical, chemical and biological characteristics of the Lake Whatcom ecosystem. This project will also provide novel tools for local resource managers that outline potential lake-level changes under various climate scenarios and identify thermal thresholds for native species loss and non-native species invasions. By going “back to the future,” Alicia and her project partners aim to understand how historical patterns in climate and water quality in Lake Whatcom can help preserve the many ecosystem services provided by this freshwater system in the face of climate change.