Chinese Journal of Oceanology and Limnology   2015, Vol. 33 Issue(6): 1349-1353     PDF       
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00343-015-5157-8
Shanghai University
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Article Information

Nickolai SHADRIN, ZHENG Mianping (郑绵平), Aharon OREN
Past, present and future of saline lakes: research for global sustainable development
Chinese Journal of Oceanology and Limnology, 2015, 33(6): 1349-1353
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00343-015-5157-8

Article History

Received May 26, 2015
accepted in principle Jun. 26, 2015;
accepted for publication Jul. 15, 2015
Past, present and future of saline lakes: research for global sustainable development
Nickolai SHADRIN1 , ZHENG Mianping (郑绵平)2, Aharon OREN3       
1 Institute of Marine Biological Research, Sevastopol 299011, Russia;
2 MLR Key Laboratory of Saline Lake Resources and Environments, Institute of Mineral Resources, Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, Beijing 100037, China;
3 Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, The Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Edmond J. Safra Campus, Givat-Ram, Jerusalem 91904, Israel
ABSTRACT:The 12th International Conference on Salt Lake Research was held in Langfang City, China from July 14 to 18, 2014. Fifteen manuscripts of presentations have been retained for publication in this special issue. They are very diverse, covering the biology, physics, chemistry and geology of salt lakes, the history of hydrological research on the Dead Sea, the effects of socioeconomic and environmental policies by stakeholders on human populations, and the increasing salinization of freshwater lakes around the world.


The 12 th International Conference on Salt Lake Research was held in Langfang City(China)from July 14 to July 18, 2014. It brought together 300 specialists in limnology, sedimentology, geology, geochemistry, biology, ecology, management and conservation from 12 countries to present the latest results and ideas on research and use of saline lakes worldwide. The fi veday conference demonstrated the growing interest of scientists in different issues of saline lake study and management. Our survey of the Aquatic Science and Fishery Abstracts(ASFA)also revealed that in recent years researchers in different disciplines have shown an increasing interest in saline lakes(about 235 papers only on hypersaline lakes in 1980s; 376 in 1990s; and more than 350 for the last 5 years); scientific publications investigating different aspects of saline lakes are steadily increasing in number. Why is there an increasing interest to study saline lakes?

Saline lakes of marine and continental origin are found on all continents, being most numerous in arid and semi-arid zones which make up about one-third of the world l and (Hammer, 1986; Zheng, 2001). They are an essential, integral and dynamic part of the biosphere, and the processes occurring in their unique ecosystems have considerable environmental, social and economic value(Zheng, 2001; Shadrin, 2009). Owing to extremely high rates of organic matter production and sedimentation and to calcium carbonate deposition(Last, 1993; Jellison et al., 1996; Mirzoyeva et al., 2015), they can be regarded as efficient carbon sinks and natural mechanisms to retard the human-related greenhouse effect(Shadrin, 2009). They are also natural resting and wintering grounds for migrating birds, and biotopes for many unique micro- and macroorganisms, only part of which have yet been described.

Living conditions in saline lakes are often very extreme and highly variable. During the dry season, water partly or totally evaporates from these water bodies. Salinity may increase so dramatically that only a few types of prokaryotes(bacteria and archaea)may survive, and they must pay a high energy cost to adapt to these stressful conditions(Oren, 2011). Some types of organisms that have insufficient energy to adapt under these conditions can produce resting stages to overcome temporarily unsuitable conditions. Organisms that have evolved dormant stages to counter the adverse environment conditions play an important role in such lakes(Moscatello and Belmonte, 2009; Shadrin et al., 2015).

Less extremely hypersaline lake ecosystems may display amazing structural and functional diversity on relatively small scales, and their properties can vary greatly with time. Despite the hostility of the environment, hypersaline lakes often demonstrate extremely high biological productivity. This enigmatic phenomenon may be defi ned as the paradox of the hypersaline ecosystems; it has not yet been fully explained. One possible strategy is that halophilic unicellular organisms are able to optimize their metabolism using natural diurnal pH and Eh fl uctuations or by migrating through layers with distinct gradients from oxidized to reduced conditions(Saburova and Polikarpov, 2002; Shadrin, 2008). There is a broad variety of microniches in hypersaline biotopes that support co-existence of aerobic and anaerobic organisms, oxygenic and anoxygenic photoautotrophs, heterotrophs and chemolithotrophs(Oren, 2002). We hypothesize that full-range, sharp gradients of the key abiotic variables(e.g. Eh, pH, O 2, H 2 S, light energy)in space(on microscale) and in time(hours)facilitate the optimal coupling between various types of metabolism while maximizing energy and biogenic element fl uxes in the ecosystems.

Many hypersaline lakes are exploited for raw materials used in industry, agriculture and medicine, e.g. the minerals halite, mirabilite and zeolite, and the elements lithium, magnesium, boron, tungsten, and others(Nissenbaum, 1993; Zheng, 2001). They also contain considerable amounts of biological resources such as halophilic bacteria and algae, and animals of economic and scientific value(Renaud et al., 1994; Oren, 2002; Lavens and Sorgeloos, 2000; Anufriieva, 2014). Another valuable product is the widely used medicinal mud, generally formed as a result of biological activities in the lakes(Nissenbaum, 1993; Ivanova, 1994). A further important aspect of these unique lakes is their potential in the tourism industry. They also have a scientific value, including for development of new concepts. Saline lake ecosystems can exist in more than one stable state(Zagorodnyaya et al., 2008; Shadrin, 2010). The presence of laminated bottom sediments was shown in many saline lakes(Zheng, 2014); this alternation of layers refl ects the repetitive changes of the lake ecosystem state in the past and currently(Shadrin and Anufriieva, 2013). Such laminations in sediment cores are widely used for paleoreconstructions of lake and climate changes(Zheng, 2014).

All over the world, the saline lakes are threatened by climate change, upstream water diversions for agricultural purposes, watershed changes, and other human activities that result in pronounced changes of the lakes(Salameh and El-Naser, 2000; Piovano et al., 2002; Carrasco and Perissinotto, 2012; Shadrin and Anufriieva, 2013). Among the examples are the largest saline and hypersaline lakes including Great Salt Lake, Owens Lake, Mono Lake(North America), Laguna Mar Chiquita(South America), the Dead Sea and the Aral Sea, Ebinur Lake, Urmia Lake(Asia), St. Lucia Estuary(Africa), etc. This resulted in many negative consequences for the local populations. Exposed playas, salty dust storms, ecosystem changes, local climate changes, economic and social losses, etc. are among the consequences. Some of these changes are a natural result of the global climate system variability, but the responsibility for other changes is entirely due to interference by humans. We need to know how to discriminate between these two groups of causes of the shrinking of salt lakes to predict and mitigate the negative results.

No policies/directives at the world, country and local levels have yet been developed to achieve environmentally sustainable use of the saline lakes; and a well-grounded scientific basis to develop their sustainable management strategies and technology is still lacking. The current, unregulated practice for exploiting saline lakes often disturbs the normal functioning of their ecosystems, resulting in the exhaustion of their capacity to yield social and economic values(Ivanova, 1994; Zheng, 2001). The most important challenge in the management of saline water bodies is to integrate and balance the interests of the environment(biosphere), society(different stakeholder groups), and profi t(economy/industry)with a goal for science to provide a sound scientific basis on which to engineer this balance(Zheng, 2001; Shadrin, 2009). The scientific platform for sustainable management must be based on a clear underst and ing of the special character of the organization of the saline lake ecosystems.

This special issue of the Chinese Journal of Oceanology and Limnology is based on presentations made during the 12 th International Conference on Salt Lake Research, but it does not refl ect all topics discussed during the conference.

To underst and the present status of our knowledge it is often interesting to look back in history to learn how our current concepts have developed. For example, data on the physical and the chemical structure of the Dead Sea water column were obtained already in the middle of the 19 th century, and these data are still highly relevant for the underst and ing of the development of the lake(Oren, 2015).

Knowledge of past changes is one of the keystones for underst and ing of the long-term variability of salt lake and of the factors infl uencing it. Sediments of modern and paleo-lakes are historical archives, which give us the possibility to study long-term saline lake changes on different temporal scales. New data on the sedimentary characteristics and their analysis leading to a depositional model of a Paleocene-Eocene salt lake in the Jiangling Depression are presented(Yu et al., 2015). X-ray fl uorescence analysis with synchrotron radiation was used to reconstruct the history of passage of typhoons, based on the presence in the sediments of layers accumulated during extreme fl oods that accompany typhoons(Kalugin et al., 2015). Long-term changes of microbial processes and factors controlling their activities in alkaline lakes of the Mongolian plateau—Transbaikalian region of Russia and the North East region of Mongolia were discussed by Namsaraev et al.(2015). Temperature was the most important factor infl uencing the rate of microbial processes in these lakes. The spatial and temporal variability of hydrochemical parameters and zooplankton in Lake Qarun(Egypt)was analyzed(El-Shabrawy et al., 2015). It was shown that salinity changes from 20 to(35–40)×10-3 did not determine zooplankton changes in the lake during last decades; instead, eutrophication and invasions of alien species transported by man were responsible.

Artemia cysts is one of the key resources limiting aquaculture development worldwide(Lavens and Sorgeloos, 2000; Litvinenko et al., 2015). The imbalance between supply and dem and of Artemia cysts now increases both in China and worldwide. It was suggested that the salt lakes in Tibet may contribute to a solution of the problem; therefore Artemia sinica was intentionally introduced in the high-altitude Tibetan Lake Dangxiong Co. Jia et al.(2015)analyzed the results of this introduction, and showed that the newly established Artemia population led to changes in the ecosystem with the formation of a new stable state. The present-day Artemia cyst production in Russian saline lakes and the perspectives of future increase were analyzed by Litvinenko et al.(2015). Also copepods are used as live food for fi sh larvae. Copepods are found in hypersaline waters worldwide; adults of some species can survive at salinities above 300 g/L(Anufriieva, 2015). This means that within the animal world Artemia is not the only organism that may exist in such harsh conditions.

Activity, distribution and behavior of radioactive isotopes in the Tibetan Lake Qinghai(Kong et al., 2015) and in the Crimean saline lakes in Russia(Mirzoyeva et al., 2015)were studied. Radioactive isotopes were also used as the trackers to evaluate the rates of sedimentation and water mixing. Chemical pollution is a common problem for many lakes today. A high content of mercury in some Crimean saline lakes, exceeding the maximum permissible concentration, was caused by human activities(Mirzoyeva et al., 2015).

Meromictic lakes are unique ecosystems distributed all over the world. These lakes have layers of water that do not intermix; there is strong density stratification with radically different environments along the vertical gradient. Some studied lakes discussed in this issue are meromictic: Lake Dangxiong Co(Jia et al., 2015) and Lake Doroninskoe(Matyugina and Belkova, 2015). Lake Doroninskoe is covered by ice for seven months per year. Metagenomic analysis of the microbial communities in the water column of Lake Doroninskoye revealed representatives of 11 major Eubacteria phyla with strong stratification of the microbial communities during the ice period in Lake Doroninskoye(Matyugina and Belkova, 2015).

Many lakes in Southeastern Wisconsin(USA)are still fresh water lakes, but the concentrations of chlorides within their waters are and have been constantly increasing since the 1970s(Thornton et al., 2015). Winter highway maintenance and the application of sodium chloride to highways as a de-icing agent is most likely to major pathway by which anthropogenic chloride is entering the biosphere in this region.

Saline lake researches must be directed toward the ultimate task to develop a scientific basis for the multipurpose sustainable use of the lakes. Scientific research is only one aspect of the integrated adaptive management of saline lakes and their watersheds, as a part of their environmental sustainable management. Environmental management has become a complicated social issue, which requires cooperation among all human stakeholders: scientists, citizens and industries, policy makers, and practitioners. The question is how to develop multiple stakeholder partnerships to achieve this goal. Lin et al.(2015)suggest possible ways for this.

Nowadays many different aspects of saline lakes are investigated, and the presentations during the 12 th International Conference on Salt Lake Research refl ected the highly diverse studies performed on the highly diverse saline lakes worldwide. We hope that the present collection of papers, based on selected papers presented during the conference, will be of interest to all who study or use saline lakes.

Finally this special issue would not have been possible without the dedication and inspirational comments of the reviewers, in particular, L. R. Araujo, H. M. Badran, G. Belmonte, A. Borsodi, J. Clegg, G. El-Shabrawy, X. L. Gao, Q. Y. Huang, T. K. Jana, Z. D. Jin, S. A. Kuehl, N. G. Lensky, Y. P. Li, Y. H. Li, W. G. Liu, Y. Q. Liu, A. M. Maeda-Martinez, M. Montresor, A. Nissenbaum, M. A. Reiter, D. Rogozin, J. Sanchez Espana, E. V. Sklyarov, J. Smol, V. D. Strakhovenko, N. Sturchio, L. Y. Sui, Y. H. Yu, E. S. Zadereev, W. M. Zal-Uyun, S. Y. Zang, and L. Zili.

[CJOL editors’ note: A single, tightly defi ned “TEOS-10” defi nition of “salinity” is now used for ocean waters. This is possible because the relative proportions of the major dissolved salts and ions are remarkably constant(Pawlowicz, 2013). Among salt lakes, however, these proportions vary enormously, so here the concept of salinity has to be looser. In this special issue, many papers about salt lakes use different units of salinity, such as g/L, following saltlake convention, underscoring that “salinity” is not used in the oceanographic “TEOS-10” sense.]

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