Limnology is one of the oldest fields in science. In 1850 F. Simony was the first to discover thermal stratification in lakes for this accomplishment along with P. E Miller who discovered fresh water plankton had been regarded as the founder's of limnology however these discovery's were not as significant as the work of a Professor at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. The founding of the subject is credited to two publications in the late 19th century: Stephen Forbes "The Lake as a Microcosm" and François Forel's three volume treatise on limnology. F. A. Forel (1841-1921) saw that there was potential in studying the biological processes in lakes. He is now known as the founder of modern limnology. (Welch, 1952) in 1901 he published the first limnology text book that consisted of 249 pages. It has become known as the first general presentation of limnology. The text book held the first knowledge that concerning the fauna below the thermo cline of fresh water lakes. (Welch, 1952) between the period of 1868 - 1909 Forel published 116 papers on limnology. (Welch, 1952)
There are many definitions that try to explain limnology such as by Welch in 1952 "the branch of science which deals with biological productivity of inland waters and with all the causal influences which determine it" but the best definition is that from the 1963 textbook "Limnology in North America." That states limnology is "the study of inland waters and the external influences that affect the nature of waters and the process going on in them... concerned not only with the life in these waters... but also the chemistry and physics of the waters, the geology, metrology, hydrology and bioecology of their drainage basins, and the progressively greater influence of man on the total complex of life and processes in the waters"
Welch went on to try to explain his definition of limnology by stating that Causal influences involve those various factors physical chemical biological meteorological ect. All of these determine the character and quantity of biological production (Welch, 1952). With "the biological productivity that is used in this definition includes its qualitative and quantitative features and its actual and potential aspects"
Under the term inland waters are included all kinds or types of water running or still; fresh or saline or other physicochemical composition which are wholly or almost completely included within the land masses.
As limnology dose involve all of these areas, it incorporates them in a much more depth in the area of science in the relevance to understand the physical, chemical and biological behaviour of the water bodies. This information is integrated from different areas into a holistic understanding of inland waters. This fundamental research gave us the understanding of how inland waters function and how they interact with the surrounding terrestrial environment. (Brezonink, 2010) Like all fields of science, Limnology depends on the proper applications on the approaches to it. The methods and principles used must be correct and recognised as there is a broad range of fields ranging across chemistry, physics, geology, hydrography and more which all ultimately end up in the biological productivity that ties the whole lot into the one field.(Welch, 1952)
Limnological researches largely centred upon the subjects of lake information, Seiches waves and heat distribution along with other physical matter. In the subject of limnology the physiographical branch of limnology includes hydrochemistry, hydro physics and hydromechanics as well as hydraulics (Storm, 1929). All of these are now well developed however in the late 19th and early 20th century the primary interests was in the biology of Taxa. Where many limnologists would in fact claim that biology is at the core of the subject and that " Limnology is essentially a synthetic science composed of elements some of which extend beyond the limits of biology as ordinarily conceived"(Marcus, 1959). But in today's advancements in the subject of limnology the two fields of physiographical and biological can no longer be divided as two separate fields of work. This was discussed and proposed by K. Storm in 1929. New problems in counted start to bridging the gaps between the physical, chemical and biological sciences.
It wasn't until the late 1950's that limnology achieved stature and recognition in the American academic community. Where the successes of limnology science was largely based on the applications of a small set of general and repeatable principles that where little more than statistical relationships. (Parie, 2008) Now research is developed along with statistical analysis and is expanding. (Spoolman, 2003) While its sister sciences of hydrosphere, hydrology and oceanography are more developed and are a lot better known.(Marcus, 1959) this is where hydrology developed quickly because of human requirements. Water supply, flood control irrigation and navigation. (Marcus, 1959)
Limnology is viewed as oceanography on a miniature scale and As they have so much in common the advances in one have frequently advanced the progress of the other (Marcus, 1959) . However the diversity with each individual lake it must be looked upon as a microcosm. John Murray (1910) combined the methods of hydrology and oceanography to study the Scottish Lochs (Marcus, 1959)
Observations and recordings of lakes date back as far as the 17th century but it wasn't until In 1882 the fist classification of lakes was presented before the Boston Society of natural history, however there where floors and a new classification was presented within 5 years this new proposal demonstrating the lake with regards to the type of lake basins and the drainage patterns. (Marcus, 1959) however this classification system was questioned by Albrecht Penck and Israel Russell in 1894, where both realized that the lake types that are formed are by several natural events and split into one of eleven according categories. Such as landslides, glaciers or earth movements (Marcus, 1959). Also wave action, sedimentation and chemical processes can dramatically change and alter the morphology of a lake basin (Marcus, 1959). An example of the different configuration of lakes formed by the same process is the random nature of the lake formation by the glacial events in the region of Myriad, Wisconsin. These lakes have huge variation in there chemistry, biological and morphological characteristics. The climate is direct responses to lake levels as these fluctuate according the atmospheric pressure and air temperature. The amount of moisture held above and below the earth's surface is also a major factor.
In 1910 Chumley completed a bibliography of Limnological literature containing over 2,900 entries(Marcus, 1959) The expanding body of knowledge has been pulled together and presented in comprehensive Limnological treatises.
In 1888 the first fresh water biological station was established in the Bohemian forest, central Europe by Professor Anton Fritsch. This station was a portable laboratory that was able to be moved to different lakes. Following this, Fresh water Stations started to appear all over Europe and the Western world (Germany, Sweden, Russia, Denmark, Norway, France, Scotland and Italy) and the United States (Welch, 1952). The data that was collected from these research stations has all laid the basis for modern limnology. Prior to 1870 little or no research was done on American limnology. The research that was carried out mainly concentrated on the great lakes and fish biology as the interest of biologist was in the taxonomic part. This is shown in text books published around this time. With Louis Agassiz's book "Lake Superior: Its physical character, Vegetation and animals" (1850) 131 pages of this book contained information dealing with fish species of that lake, "The deep water fauna of lake Michigan" was published in 1870 by Stimson and Forbes published "A study of high lakes in the Rocky Mountains" (1893). This book by Forbes was regarded the only information about the biological aspects in the western united states for a number of years (Welch, 1952).
Limnology had its grates advancements between the two world wars.(Kalff, 2001) as in this period estimations on primary productivity and nutrient content had been made. Along with this limnologists had began to develop new methods and materials. Professors Edward A. Birge and Chancey Juday where the pioneers in limnology at Wisconsin university. They established the limnology laboratory of the Wisconsin logical and natural history survey in 1925. (Spoolman, 2003) and were the first limnologist in America, along with this Birge was also the first teacher of limnology at the University of Wisconsin. Birge and Juday used the resources that they had at the university to their full potential where the recruited scientists from different fields that included chemists, biologist, microbiologist, physicists and engineers who helped them to develop interments for the pair. With these resources at hand they surveyed over 500 lakes in the Vilas County. Measuring water depth, temperature, alkalinity, dissolved gasses, water visibility along with taking sediment samples. The retirement of Professor Edward A. Birge and Chancey Juday in 1941 opened opportunities for a young limnologist, Arthur D. Hasler to come through, however these younger scientists wanted to spend more time analyzing the data in the lab than collecting it. This coursed conflict between Birge, Juday and Hasler. In the earlier years Birge and Juday did not agree with Hasler's methods and approaches as he had a higher interest in experimentation and did not believe that comparing and describing samples was not science. While Juday felt that studying nature could not possibly involve manipulating the environment. So the transition between these two eras from collecting data to collecting, analysing and carrying out experiments by manipulating the environmental conditions in the in the field was not the easiest.
Hasler became known for his whole lake manipulations, where he would change one variable in a lake and observe the effects. An example of this is where Hasler and his students added lime to a lake hypothesizing that this would change the alkalinity of the water and there for making the water clearer and ultimately increasing plant growth and dissolved oxygen. The experiment concluded that Hasler's hypothesis was correct. This experiment was a milestone in limnology as it showed that controlled experiments could be performed in a natural environment.(Spoolman, 2003) Once Hasler retired in 1978 a young man named Magnuson took over. Magnuson believed that you have to take the best of the past and carry it forward in new and developed program.
Economic and resources departments must turn to limnology when confronted with the decline of fresh waters and there fisheries. As the state of our rivers and inland wetlands are at a major declining state in today's society and is undeniably becoming a problem on a not only a national but a world wide scale.
As the rivers connect to lakes and the contaminants flow through, this impacts not only the lakes but it also impacts on human activities. This cannot be ignored as these water systems provide the world with food, drinking water transport and recreational activities. (Marcus, 1959)
Due to lack of funding from the government and other independent companies university research programs have not being able to keep up with government research. This restriction affects the total effort that is made towards the advancements in the field and towards the problems faced with water pollution. This is also is a disability on the education of the postgraduate students. Ecosystems can be studied through the analysis of biogeochemical cycles, system metabolism, food webs and physico-chemical gradients. In the United States the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that the annual cost of water pollution control, which is primarily for inland waters is approximately $50 billion USD per year and is increasing annually (William M. Lewis, 1996) this value is an acknowledgement to the importance of the natural lakes, streams, reservoirs, wetlands, everglades, groundwater's and all other water sources that hold large importance to human well-being. (William M. Lewis, 1996) present research that fronts in the study of limnology include the study of the structure of aquatic communities, the microbial processes of inland waters, nitrogen cycling and responses to the nitrogen enrichments of aquatic systems from land runoffs and the origin and processing of organic matter on surface water. Phosphorus is the one variable that will allow us to predict the aspects and functions of bodies of water in a temperate environment. This is shown in numerous publications that are based on phosphorus concentration in lakes. Although after a tougher 20 years, this concept developed a second variable that was discovered recently, Dissolved organic carbon (DOC). As the DOC is the variable that models and influences the content of the other compounds in the surrounding environment (Parie, 2008).
Limnology has changed throughout time and with this increasing knowledge and information becomes available, this opens up to new ideas and concepts to be developed, with this, the advancement and development of new technology go hand and hand. However the type of research has been dependent upon technology to provide the tools and means for sub-surface investigations. So the research that can and has being done has been limited on the technology available (Marcus, 1959). With advancements in new technology unmanned robots this opens up new levels and type of research that can be done without any risk. Unmanned robots can be sent down to the bottom of the deepest lakes to collect data such as temperature, dissolved oxygen, organic carbon levels and sediment samples where this data can be sent back to the lab through radio transmissions in real time (Spoolman, 2003). However technology is only just starting to catch up with the ideas and hypostatises that are been proposed.
As this is becoming a more and more water conscious era and water is now being study worldwide. It has become demanded on a large scale that water requirements, regional planning and economic viability is a priority. As the research has developed over the last century it has helped us understand the impacts of pollutants on the inland water systems, not only on our water supply but the effect that it has on the surrounding ecosystems. This gives us a bass line of what needs to be done in terms of managing and solving the water pollution problem (Brezonink, 2010). The construction of structures such as dams and canals, which alter the ecology and morphology of a lake or river, which can subsequently re-influence human activities. Man has created thousands of artificial lakes for waste management and resources (Marcus, 1959).
The publications of systematic surveys on water supplies by the public health was boards are unknowingly added to the overall information about limnology. Due to the amount of increasing human impacts on nature, limnology has brought a social side to it. This includes how people affect and relate to aquatic ecosystems through the use of economics, politics and the lifestyle of people (Spoolman, 2003) Limnology is not to be made incomprehensible to the general readers and public that is interested in the study of inland water bodies by the use of expressions and the introduction of foreign words. (Mill, 1901)
James Kitchell who is presently head of the limnology department at the Wisconsin university stated in a interview "You first survey what you are studying over a period of time, as did Birge and Juday. Then you can try to understand the nature of it, as Hasler did. Now we ask, what can we do about it? We try to hire people who complement each other in experience and expertise to basic research. And we look at management people in business and government to apply what we find towards solving problems"(Spoolman, 2003).
Ref
Brezonink, P. L. (2010). Limnology's Second Century: New Challenges and opportunities. Deparment of Civil Engineering and Water Resources Research Center, University of Minnesota Minneapolis.
Kalff, J. (2001). Limnology: Prentice-Hall. inc.
Marcus, M. G. (1959). Limnology: Its Growth and Evolution Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 49(4), 466-470.
Mill, H. R. (1901). Prof. Forel on Limnology. The Geographical Journal 17(3), 296-298.
Parie, Y. T. (2008). Carbocentric Limology: Looking Back, looking Forward. Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci 65:543-548.
Spoolman, S. (2003). Expanding Waters: How Wisconsin Became the Wellspring of a New Scientific Field. Wisconsin Magazine of History.
Storm, K. M. (1929). The Study of Limnology. Jurnal Of Ecology, Vol. 17(No. 1), 106-111.
Welch, P. S. (1952). LIMNOLOGY (Vol. Third). USA: Mcgraw Hill Book Company Inc.
William M. Lewis, J. (1996). Limnology, as Seen by Limnologists. Boulder, Colorado: Deparment of Environmental, population, and Organismic Biology, University of Colorado.
