Experimental Lakes Area (ELA)
The Experimental Lakes Area (ELA) is a unique research facility located in eastern Canada, established in 1968 by environmentalist David Schindler to address significant environmental issues, particularly the acidification of lakes. This facility encompasses fifty-eight small lakes and their drainage basins, which provide a natural laboratory for studying the physical, chemical, and biological processes of aquatic ecosystems over extended timeframes. The ELA's primary goals include advancing understanding of global environmental threats, monitoring human impacts on lakes, and promoting conservation and education efforts.
Research at the ELA has led to critical insights into water pollution, including studies on the effects of mercury and climate change on aquatic life. The facility has also investigated the consequences of increasing ultraviolet radiation, persistent toxic substances, and the role of forest materials in lake ecosystems. In recent years, ELA scientists have expanded their research to include the impact of plastics on freshwater systems and collaborate with Indigenous communities to explore the restoration of wild rice habitats, highlighting traditional ecological knowledge. The ELA's relatively isolated location minimizes external influences, making it an ideal setting for rigorous scientific inquiry into the health and sustainability of freshwater ecosystems.
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Subject Terms
Experimental Lakes Area (ELA)
IDENTIFICATION: Research facility that studies environmental problems, especially acidification, in lakes in eastern Canada
DATE: Established in 1968
The research conducted at the Experimental Lakes Area sheds light on the causes of water pollution and suggests ways of maintaining the health of freshwater lakes.
Increasing acidification of the water in lakes in Ontario and Nova Scotia led to significant declines of fish populations in those lakes from the 1960s through the 1980s. As a result, Canadian environmentalist David Schindler founded the Experimental Lakes Area (ELA) research facility in 1968 to investigate acidification and other environmental problems that were affecting the lakes of eastern Canada. The goals of the ELA are fourfold: to develop better understanding of global threats to the through knowledge gained from ecosystem, experimental, and scientific research; to monitor and demonstrate the impacts of human activities on watersheds and lakes; to develop appropriate responsibility for the preservation, restoration, and enhancement of ecosystems; and to promote environmental protection and conservation for ecosystems through education. The ELA includes fifty-eight small lakes and their drainage basins, plus three additional stream segments.
Since 2014, the ELA has been operated by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD). Because the ELA research facility is located in a sparsely inhabited region of southern Ontario, it is relatively unaffected by external human influences and industrial activities. As such, it serves as a natural laboratory for the study of physical, chemical, and biological processes and interactions operating on an over a large area and a multiyear time scale.
With renewed operating support in the late 1990s, the ELA took on several new experimental studies in addition to whole-lake acidification experiments and eutrophication recovery studies. For example, one ELA ecosystem study investigated additions of trace amounts of mercury to one of the ELA lakes. It is generally believed that high concentrations of methylmercury, the most toxic form of mercury, in fish in remote lakes is caused by elevated inputs of atmospheric inorganic mercury deposited directly into lakes and indirectly through their watersheds. The ELA has provided researchers with the opportunity to investigate this hypothesis as well as an alternative that suggests that geologic mercury is the most important source of mercury to remote lakes; such mercury originates from the weathering of deposits in lake basins.
ELA scientists have also examined the effects of climate change, dissolved carbon, and ultraviolet on lakes. One study investigated the effects of experimentally deepening the mixed layer of a lake, thereby exposing more of the lake water and organisms to surface radiation and simulating the effects observed in natural ELA lakes during two decades of warming between 1970 and 1990. Another area of research has involved reducing the natural color of an ELA lake to investigate the effects of increased ultraviolet radiation on lake life-forms. Other projects have included studies of the effects of persistent toxic substances—such as cadmium and hydrocarbons—in lakes, contributions of forest materials to lake inputs, and the alteration of food-chain processes caused by human intervention. Since 2019, ELA scientists have been researching the effects of plastics in freshwater lakes. Since 2023, researchers have been working with Indigenous peoples to study ways to bring back wild rice, which is a traditional staple. About half of the wild rice consumed in Canada is cultivated in the United States and imported; moreover, growing cultivated wild rice causes significant greenhouse gas emissions and uses a great deal of water.
Bibliography
"About IISD Experimental Lakes Area." International Institute for Sustainable Development Experimental Lakes Area, 2023, www.iisd.org/ela/about/. Accessed 17 July 2024.
"Building the Sustainability of Wild Rice as a Food Source." International Institute for Sustainable Development Experimental Lakes Area, 2023, www.iisd.org/ela/research‗projects/building-the-sustainability-of-wild-rice-as-a-food-source/. Accessed 17 July 2024.
Laws, Edward A. Aquatic Pollution: An Introductory Text. 3d ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2000.
O’Sullivan, P. E., and Colin S. Reynolds, eds. The Lakes Handbook. 2 vols. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2004-2005.
Resetarits, William J., Jr., and Joseph Bernardo, eds. Experimental Ecology: Issues and Perspectives. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.