Session
2025 Session 4
Location
Brigham Young University Engineering Building, Provo, UT
Start Date
5-5-2025 11:00 AM
Description
Utah Lake is a large, shallow freshwater lake in Utah Valley, Utah, USA. It faces a number of water quality issues, with one of the most significant being the occurrence of harmful algal blooms (HABS) that impair its ecological health and economic value. We use data from the Sentinel 2 mission to investigate spatial and temporal bloom dynamics in four different regions of the lake. We leverage the frequent, spatially comprehensive satellite data to analyze the frequency, intensity, and duration of algal blooms on Utah Lake, and find that the southern end of the lake typically experiences the most intense blooms, but Provo Bay at the east end of the lake experiences blooms much earlier in the season and for longer durations.
High-Frequency Satellite Imagery Reveals Spatial and Temporal Dynamics of Algal Blooms on Utah Lake
Brigham Young University Engineering Building, Provo, UT
Utah Lake is a large, shallow freshwater lake in Utah Valley, Utah, USA. It faces a number of water quality issues, with one of the most significant being the occurrence of harmful algal blooms (HABS) that impair its ecological health and economic value. We use data from the Sentinel 2 mission to investigate spatial and temporal bloom dynamics in four different regions of the lake. We leverage the frequent, spatially comprehensive satellite data to analyze the frequency, intensity, and duration of algal blooms on Utah Lake, and find that the southern end of the lake typically experiences the most intense blooms, but Provo Bay at the east end of the lake experiences blooms much earlier in the season and for longer durations.