Sentinel Lake Assessment Report Carrie Lake (34-0032) Kandiyohi County, Minnesota

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) is working in partnership with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (MDNR) on the Sustaining Lakes in a Changing Environment (SLICE) Sentinel Lakes Program. The focus of this interdisciplinary effort is to improve understanding of how major drivers of change such as development, agriculture, climate change, and invasive species can affect lake habitats and fish populations, and to develop a long-term strategy to collect the necessary information to detect undesirable changes in Minnesota Lakes (Valley 2010). To increase our ability to predict the consequences of land cover and climate change on lake habitats, SLICE utilizes intensive lake monitoring strategies on a wide range of representative Minnesota lakes. This includes analyzing relevant land cover and land use, identifying climate stressors, and monitoring the effects on the lake's habitat and biological communities. The Sentinel Lakes Program has selected 24 lakes for long-term intensive lake monitoring (Figure 1). The "Deep" lakes typically stratify during the summer months only. "Shallow" lakes typically do not stratify and are well mixed throughout most of the summer. "Cold Water" lakes are defined as lakes that harbor cisco, lake whitefish, or lake trout and are the focus of research funded by the Environmental Trust Fund (ETF). "Super sentinel" lakes also harbor cold-water fish populations and research on these lakes is funded by the ETF. Carrie represents a lake of moderate depth in the Western Corn Belt Plains (WCBP) ecoregion. Carrie is 36.8 hectares (91 acres) in size and is located southwest of Atwater, Minnesota in Kandiyohi County, within the Minnesota River basin watershed. The lake has a maximum depth of 7.9 meters (26 feet) and a mean depth of 3.2 meters (10.4 feet). The lake is 23 percent littoral with one public access. The total contributing watershed for Carrie Lake is quite small at 1,637 hectares (4,044 acres). The watershed is predominantly cultivated; however, the near shore riparian area is mostly wooded and ringed with homes and cabins.