Lake restoration lags – fact sheet

Abstract

Regulatory responses to declines in lake health have often been characterised by long lag times. Under these circumstances regulation has often failed to prevent declining lake health or to implement successful restoration programmes. For Lake Rotorua, response lags can be seen in the time passing between the recognition of water quality decline (e.g. weed problems and algal blooms), and the effect of regulatory actions to improve water quality (e.g. land use management changes). Research undertaken by Mueller et al. (2015) has shown that lag times of approximately 5 years may occur between significant environmental declines and regulatory responses.