Analyzing and comparing ecosystem assessments of reservoirs

Surface water reservoirs play an essential role in drinking water production, hence monitoring the reservoir behavior is crucial. However, monitoring a reservoir ecosystem is hindered by heterogeneous data collection methods and the sometimes complex interpretation of the different measurements. Therefore, this paper first presents a unified data schema for data collection and then showcases analyses such as complementary fingerprinting methods: Microbial fingerprints are calculated using the Shannon and Pielou’s evenness indices from 16S rRNA data, and a biochemical fingerprint is derived using an autoencoder applied to physicochemical parameters. When applied to an actively managed agricultural-forested reservoir and a natural montane-forest reservoir, distinct fingerprint signatures were revealed. Specifically, an elevated reconstruction error and changes in biodiversity coinciding with a cyanobacterial bloom were observed in the managed system, while the montane reservoir maintained stable patterns with natural seasonal dynamics. This proposed framework enables early detection of ecological shifts and supports cross-reservoir assessments for ecosystem monitoring.