Department of Natural Resource Sciences and McGill School of Environment, McGill University, Montréal, Canada.
PLoS One. 2011 Jan 10;6(1):e15913. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0015913.
A hallmark of the latter half of the 20(th) century is the widespread, rapid intensification of a variety of anthropogenically-driven environmental changes--a "Great Acceleration." While there is evidence of a Great Acceleration in a variety of factors known to be linked to water quality degradation, such as conversion of land to agriculture and intensification of fertilizer use, it is not known whether there has been a similar acceleration of freshwater eutrophication.
METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Using quantitative reconstructions of diatom-inferred total phosphorus (DI-TP) as a proxy for lake trophic state, we synthesized results from 67 paleolimnological studies from across Europe and North America to evaluate whether most lakes showed a pattern of eutrophication with time and whether this trend was accelerated after 1945 CE, indicative of a Great Acceleration. We found that European lakes have experienced widespread increases in DI-TP over the 20(th) century and that 33% of these lakes show patterns consistent with a post-1945 CE Great Acceleration. In North America, the proportion of lakes that increased in DI-TP over time is much lower and only 9% exhibited a Great Acceleration of eutrophication.
CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: The longer and more widespread history of anthropogenic influence in Europe, the leading cause for the relatively pervasive freshwater eutrophication, provides an important cautionary tale; our current path of intensive agriculture around the world may lead to an acceleration of eutrophication in downstream lakes that could take centuries from which to recover.
20 世纪后半叶的一个显著特点是，各种人为驱动的环境变化——即“大加速”——广泛而迅速地加剧。虽然有证据表明，与水质恶化有关的各种因素（如土地转为农业和化肥使用强度加大）发生了大加速，但尚不清楚淡水富营养化是否也出现了类似的加速。
方法/主要发现：我们使用硅藻推断的总磷（DI-TP）作为湖泊营养状态的替代指标进行定量重建，综合了来自欧洲和北美的 67 项古湖泊学研究的结果，以评估大多数湖泊是否随着时间的推移呈现富营养化模式，以及这种趋势是否在 1945 年之后加速，这表明存在大加速。我们发现，欧洲湖泊的 DI-TP 在 20 世纪普遍增加，其中 33%的湖泊显示出与 1945 年之后大加速相一致的模式。在北美洲，随着时间的推移 DI-TP 增加的湖泊比例要低得多，只有 9%的湖泊表现出富营养化的大加速。
结论/意义：欧洲人类影响的历史更长、更广泛，这是导致普遍淡水富营养化的主要原因，这提供了一个重要的警示故事；我们目前在全球范围内密集发展农业的道路可能会导致下游湖泊富营养化加速，而这些湖泊可能需要几个世纪才能恢复。
