For example, PCLake is used to understand the phenomena of alternative stable states and hysteresis, and in that light, the relative importance of lake features such as water depth or fetch length.
[7] The meta-model can be used by water managers to derive an estimate of the critical loading values for a certain lake based on only a few important parameters, without the need of running the full dynamical model.
The model calculates chlorophyll-a, transparency, cyanobacteria, vegetation cover and fish biomass, as well as the concentrations and fluxes of nutrients N, P and Si, and oxygen.
PCLake is calibrated against nutrient, transparency, chlorophyll and vegetation data on more than 40 European (but mainly Dutch) lakes, and systematic sensitivity and uncertainty analysis have been performed.
The first version of PCLake (by then called PCLoos) was built in the early 1990s at the Netherlands National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), within the framework of a research and restoration project on Lake Loosdrecht.
The models were further developed by dr. Jan H. Janse and colleagues at the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL), formerly part of the RIVM.
Since 2009, the model is jointly owned by PBL and the Netherlands Institute of Ecology, where further development and application of PCLake is taking place, related to aquatic-ecological research.