Recent eutrophication and environmental changes in the catchment inferred from geochemical properties of Lake Onuma Sediments in Japan

Abstract

This study investigated the continuous record of eutrophication in Lake Onuma based on the geochemical properties of two lake sediment cores obtained from the deepest part of the lake in 2011. Based on a tuff layer deposited during the eruption of Mt. Komagatake, and on the correlation between fluctuations in δ13C and δ15N values, two sediment cores, ON11-2-2 and ON11-6, were dated to the 1920s and 1890s, respectively. The δ13C value and C/N ratio for the lake sediments show values within the ranges for planktonic material and river sediment, suggesting that the lake sediment is a mixture of these sources and that their mixture ratio was almost constant since the 1920s. On the other hand, the δ15N of two cores show a similar trend with increasing δ15N from the 1950s–1960s to the present time. It is attributed to the increase in the δ15N value of planktonic material reflecting anthropogenic nitrogen inflow to the lake.