Lake ID

Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (MNDNR) site ID 70011800. This link provides information on lake location, morphometry, and fisheries. 

Gifford Lake is a relatively shallow lake near the city of Shakopee, Minnesota. The lake is about 10.5 feet (3 meters) deep and 119 acres (48 hectares) in size. It is categorized as a Class 2B warm-water fishery (Statutes, 2021). Gifford Lake is in the floodplain of the Minnesota River. Floodplain lakes, with their complex hydrology and ecosystems, are subject to periodic flooding that introduces water, sediment, and aquatic life. 

Because Gifford Lake is relatively shallow, the native fish population is subject to winterkills when the lake is covered by ice and snow. The past two winters have been extremely mild with winterkills a rarity (MNDNR, 2021). 

Due to its depth, all of Gifford Lake supports rooted aquatic plants. A map of the lake bottom has not been found and generating the bathymetric (depth) map may not be justified in this shallow floodplain lake. 

Water quality monitoring activities for floodplain lakes have been either eliminated or reduced because of the regular intrusion of water from the Minnesota River. Sediment and paleolimnological assessments have been periodically completed to understand the quantity and quality of sediment deposition in some of the floodplain lakes from the Minnesota River. Information about water chemistry was not found for Gifford Lake. 

Monitoring Data

Transparency

Measurements of transparency, a measure of water clarity, were provided by the University of Minnesota LakeBrowser (UofMN, 2021). The transparency of Gifford Lake usually is only about 0.6 meters (less than 2 feet). The transparency rarely is as good as the 1-meter (about 3.3 feet) Minnesota shallow lakes criteria (Statutes, 2021). 

References 

MNDNR. (2021, Sept 13). Gifford (70011800) Lakefinder. Retrieved from Status of Fishery: https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/lakefind/showreport.html?downum=70011800 

Statutes. (2021, August 10). Minnesota Administrative Rules 7050.0222. Retrieved from https://www.revisor.mn.gov/rules/7050.0222/ 

UofMN. (2021, Sept 13). Minnesota LakeBrowser. Retrieved from Minnesota LakeBrowser: https://lakes.rs.umn.edu/# 

This data was last updated November 2021.