Lake bottom imagery: a simple, fast and inexpensive method for surveying shallow freshwater ecosystems of permafrost regions.

• Main Authors: Bouchard, Frédéric, Fortier, Daniel, Paquette, Michel, Bégin, Paschale-Noël, Vincent, Warwick F., Laurion, Isabelle
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2015
• Subjects: lac; eau douce; écosystème; régions de pergélisol; Arctic; permafrost; pergélisol
• Online Access: https://espace.inrs.ca/id/eprint/4298/

Widespread and diverse in permafrost landscapes, freshwater ecosystems play a crucial role in maintaining the traditional lifestyle of northern communities as habitats for aquatic plants and wildlife, and many are also biogeochemical hotspots that strongly emit greenhouse gases. Limnological and paleolimnological studies are of great importance for understanding the past, present and future dynamics of such aquatic systems. This paper presents a novel, highly integrated lake-bottom imagery strategy for surveying lake-bottom water and sediments prior to sampling. It is user-friendly and easily portable, can be implemented rapidly in the field with directly accessible data, and is much less expensive than regular lake basin surveying techniques. The method integrates GPS-assisted sonar technology, underwater HD photo-video camera, and water depth and temperature sensors. Examples from Canadian High Arctic permafrost landscapes, where the method has been recently applied, are reported and discussed.