- water
- water-quality
Total phosphorus measures every form of phosphorus in a water sample — dissolved and particulate — as a single number. Phosphorus is usually the limiting nutrient for freshwater algae, so it is the parameter regulators watch most closely in the Western Lake Erie basin, where phosphorus loading feeds the harmful algal blooms that recur in the Maumee watershed.
Because it is the driver, total phosphorus is the pollutant most likely to carry a binding total maximum daily load and a point-source wasteload allocation in this record. A reach already over its phosphorus budget has no assimilative headroom for a new load no matter how much water it carries — and the bloom itself worsens the dissolved oxygen sag that stresses aquatic life downstream.