Temporal patterns of phytoplankton fluorescence in the St. Lawrence River in relation to temperature and colored dissolved organic matter

Water quality data (in vivo chlorophyll-a and phycocyanin), colored dissolved organic matter and water temperature measured river water in a flow through chamber (from June 2014 to December 2019) placed in the Moses-Saunders hydropower dam located on the St. Lawrence River, between the State of New York (USA) and the Province of Ontario (Canada). The multi-sensor array installed in Unit 32 power turbine of the Moses-Saunders hydroelectric dam, along the New York shoreline of the St. Lawrence River (45°0.253’ N, 74°47.945’W) consists of a Turner Designs (Sunnyvale, CA) C6 multi-sensor platform equipped with Cyclops-7 sondes. The array measures numerous water quality variables at 1-2 minute intervals. The data support a study that describes a method by which changes in phytoplankton abundance in a large river system, as inferred by pigment (phycocyanin, chlorophyll a) fluorescence, can be related to environmental variables at several scales of observation (from daily to annual).