NHDES Releases New Hampshire Lake Trend Report

Concord, N.H. – The Watershed Management Bureau (WMB), Water Division, of New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services (NHDES) has released a new report entitled "New Hampshire Lake Trend Report: Status and trends of water quality indicators". The report documents long-term trends and short-term changes to the ecological condition of 150 lakes and ponds in New Hampshire that participate in the volunteer lake assessment program (VLAP). The report capitalizes on the state's long term commitment to surface water quality monitoring by generating data summaries of water quality indicators such as pH, alkalinity, temperature, and many others, that describe the current conditions and relative comparisons among and between lakes.

Specifically, the report describes how New Hampshire's lakes are experiencing an increase in specific conductance, potentially the result of the use of salt in the winter months as a deicing agent. Also, the report describes that the percentage of monitored beaches issued a fecal bacteria advisory and the number of days an advisory was in place significantly increased from 2003 to 2018. And further, the report found improvements in water quality indicators associated with acid rain and relatively stable levels of the nutrients that cause algal blooms. Last, the data are clear that the lakes in the report are experiencing earlier ice out dates and warmer water temperatures, potential indicators of climate change impacts.

This is the first report of this kind and is scheduled to be released in five-year increments as described in the NHDES Water Monitoring Strategy.

For more information, please contact Kirsten Nelson, NHDES Watershed Management Bureau, at Kirsten.Nelson@des.nh.gov or (603) 271-1152.