THE MORPHOLOGY OF LANDSCAPE ELEMENTS AS PREDICTORS OF WATER-QUALITY IN GLACIAL BOREAL LAKES/

In a statistical approach to the study of watershed-lake water quality interaction, information about geology, land cover and soils was digi tized in the drainage area of 87 chemically monitored lakes. With stan dard 1:50000 scale maps as the source of information, 33 classes of la ndscape elements were identified. Using geographical information syste ms (GIS) facilitated the determination of morphological element charac teristics such as basic area and dispersal measures. The variables thu s derived are used to test whether or not the dispersal characteristic s affect lake water quality. It is concluded that they significantly e nhance the performance of regression models in explaining inter-lake v ariances of the characterizing chemical constituents, namely, hardness , colour, total phosphorus, pH, alkalinity, conductivity and Secchi de pth. General conclusions regarding annual chemical variability and pro bability density functions of morphology variables are also made. As a result, landscape elements can be ranked according to their general i nfluence on lake water quality. With variable ranges being quite broad , the results should be valid in many glacial/boreal lakes throughout the world. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.