Sentinel responses to droughts, wildfires, and floods: effects of UV radiation on lakes and their ecosystem services

Environmental drivers such as climate change are responsible for extreme events that are critically altering freshwater resources across the planet. In the continental US, these events range from increases in the frequency and duration of droughts and wildfires in the West, to increasing precipitation and floods that are turning lakes and reservoirs brown in the East. Such events transform and transport organic carbon in ways that affect the exposure of ecosystems to ultraviolet (UV) radiation and visible light, with important implications for ecosystem services. Organic matter dissolved in storm runoff or released as black carbon in smoke selectively reduces UV radiation exposure. In contrast, droughts generally increase water transparency, so that UV radiation and visible light penetrate to greater depths. These shifts in water transparency alter the potential for solar disinfection of waterborne parasites, the production of carcinogenic disinfection byproducts in drinking water, and the vertical distribution of zooplankton that are a critical link in aquatic food webs.