Influencing factors analysis for algal blooms in cold region reservoir

This paper investigated the temporal variations of the phytoplankton biomass along 10 years in the Nierji reservoir located in the northeast of China. The factor analysis was applied to identify significant influencing factors of algal growth. The results demonstrated that total nitrogen (TN) was strongly correlated to phytoplankton in the middle of the reservoir and total phosphorus (TP) showed the same pattern in the outflow of the reservoir. In contrast, water transparency was weakly affected by the production of phytoplankton. Besides, there were annual variations observed for the ratios of TN to TP, while 54.02% of the collected data indicated that TP was limiting the phytoplankton.