Long-term environmental monitoring record
Physiochemical conditions in Esthwaite Water have been continuously monitored on a weekly to fortnightly basis from 1945 by the Freshwater Biological Association (FBA), and then from 1989 by the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH). Measurements and depth integrated surface water samples (0-5 m) were collected from the deepest point of Esthwaite Water, including surface water temperature, pH and alkalinity, and the concentration of total phosphorus (TP), soluble reactive phosphorus (SRP), nitrate-nitrogen (NO3-N), ammonium-nitrogen (NH4-N) and chlorophyll a (Chl a ). Winter SRP was calculated as the mean SRP from December to February. The full dataset is available at: https://doi.org/10.5285/87360d1a-85d9-4a4e-b9ac-e315977a52d3 (Maberly et al ., 2017), and annual means for these variables have previously been described (Thorpe et al ., 2022).