Water-quality monitoring in Tempe Town Lake, Tempe, Arizona, USA, ongoing since 2005

Constructed in 1997, the Tempe Town Lake is a small man-made reservoir that transforms a section of the typically-dry Salt River bed into a 224-acre lake in the heart of Tempe, Arizona. To accommodate the river when it flows, the lake features hydraulically-operated steel gates that allow water to pass through the system unimpeded. The lake has been a remarkable success as a community amenity and as a driver of economic growth in the area around the lake. The lake provides an ideal model system for the many artificial lakes constructed in arid-land cities owing to management decisions, such as draining, that affect their operation and ecology. At the same time, dramatic shifts in hydrology and chemistry when the lake is transformed to a flowing river and back into a lake during and after floods, provide opportunities to study the system's dynamic evolution to new limnological steady states.

The CAP LTER has been measuring water quality, including temperature, pH, conductivity, and dissolved oxygen, dissolved organic carbon (DOC), and total dissolved nitrogen (TDN), in the lake since 2005.

坦佩镇湖（Tempe Town Lake）始建于1997年，是一座小型人工水库，将亚利桑那州坦佩市中心一段常年干涸的盐河（Salt River）河床改造为占地224英亩的湖泊。为适配河道行洪需求，该湖配备液压驱动钢制闸门，可保障水体无阻碍地通过该系统。该湖作为社区公共休闲空间与区域经济增长引擎，已取得显著成效。针对诸多因排水等管理决策影响自身运行与生态的干旱城市人工湖泊，该湖是一套理想的研究模型系统。与此同时，在洪水期间及洪水过后，该湖会经历从湖泊到流动河道再恢复为湖泊的水文与化学性质剧变，这为研究该系统向全新湖沼稳态的动态演化过程提供了绝佳契机。

自2005年起，CAP LTER便持续监测该湖的水质指标，涵盖水温、pH值、电导率、溶解氧、溶解性有机碳（DOC）以及总溶解氮（TDN）。