Author(s)

David H. Miller¹, Xiangsheng Xia², Wei-Chuang Huang³, Ronald Rossmann¹

¹U.S. EPA, ORD, NHEERL, Mid-Continent Ecology Division, Large Lakes Research Station, Grosse Ile, Michigan, USA.
²CSC Corporation, Grosse Ile, Michigan, USA.
³U.S. Navy Research Laboratory, Geothermal Program Office, China Lake, California, USA.

Lake Michigan, the sixth largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area, was utilized as a water body for assessment. Field data collected at sampling sites throughout the lake in an intensive monitoring effort were utilized for evaluation of the distribution of sediment measurements. An assessment of sediment nutrient and carbon measurements within Lake Michigan was completed to recognize strata resulting from the hydrodynamics of the system. Nonparametric comparison tests revealed that significant differences exist between measurements of sediment nutrients and organic carbon in the lake using strata based upon water column depth (all results demon-strated a p < 0.05, α = 0.05). Cross-validation analysis was applied to the field-collected samples, revealing that large errors occur when estimating sediment flux of carbon or nutrients at a given location in the lake without considering stratification of the distributions of these measurements. Errors in estimating sediment concentrations of nutrients and carbon specific to a location in the lake demonstrated a statistically significant increase when stratification of sediment measurements wasn’t employed among sites. For example, distributions of errors in estimating all nutrients and organic carbon concentrations, whereby distance squared inverse interpolation methods were applied, demonstrated a statistically significant increase in absence of stratification (all p < 0.001, α = 0.05). These results have implications for characterization, monitoring, and modeling sediment and water interaction as related to eutrophication, as well as to contaminant exposure and bioaccumulation for chemicals within Lake Michigan and large water bodies where stratification of the sediment based upon physics of the system exists.

Lake Michigan, Sediments, Nonparametric Comparison Tests, Cross-Validation Analysis

Miller, D. , Xia, X. , Huang, W. and Rossmann, R. (2016) Distribution of Sediment Measurements in Lake Michigan as a Case Study: Implications for Estimating Sediment and Water Interactions in Eutrophication and Bioaccumulation Models. Applied Mathematics, 7, 1846-1867. doi: 10.4236/am.2016.715153.