Lake pollution control and restoration: A critical review of strategies and measures for plateau lakes in Southwestern China

Abstract

Many lakes around the world are facing severe issues of water pollution and ecosystem deterioration, which poses great threats to sustainable socio-economic development and human health. Therefore, effective protection of lake environment has garnered intensive attention worldwide, and numerous strategies and measures have been developed for water quality improvement and ecological restoration of lakes. However, there is still lack of a comprehensive synthesis and assessment of these methods and their applicability in lake protection. In this review, strategies and measures commonly applied for control and treatment of exogenous (including soil and water erosion reduction, sewage treatment, interception of surface runoff, establishment of riparian buffer strip, etc.) and endogenous (including algae removal, sediment dredging, clean water diversion and aquatic biological restoration, etc.) pollution sources of the nine plateau lakes in Yunnan Province, southwestern China are summarized and assessed. Specifically, the practicality, implementation status, benefits, drawbacks and challenges of the strategies and methods are evaluated and summarized in order to provide general guidance for lake protection, depsite the methods should be specialized based on the unique properties of lakes. Restoration of submerged vegetation is highly desirable for improvement of water quality and establishment of healthy aquatic ecosystems in lakes. Furthermore, the potential applicability of some emerging measures and significance of management policies in lake protection are proposed. There are still big challenges in lake pollution control and restoration, especially more practical application of diverse measures for lake protection in field scale is needed in the future.