In that previous post I made a suggestion that the large number of 'blue green algae' related searches over the summer of 2018 likely heralds an increase in demand for the services of this company in the months ahead.
Although I didn't mention it in that last post -I thought I had already been deviating too much from the subject of the thread- I though it might be of some interest that there does seem to be some evidence to back up the argument that a large volume of Google algae-related searches have led to an increase in work for this company in the successive 12 months.
The chart above shows the 'Google Trends' searches for the term 'blaualgen' going back to 2004. Although 'blaualgen' is the term used for blue green algae in German, the searches originate not only from Germany, but also a number of other northern European countries including Luxembourg, Austria and Switzerland, as well as countries such as the Netherlands to a lesser extent (the Dutch equivalent word, 'blauwalgen' is very close, and I suspect that, given that most people in the Netherlands speak German, the two words are used interchangeably in this country).
Prior to 2018, the last major spike in searches for the term 'blaualgen' on Google was back in the summer of 2010 (circled above), suggesting that there were major problems with blue-green algae in northern Europe in that year.
It does appear that these large-scale algae outbreaks that year did flow through to more work for the company over the next 12 months. Below is an extract from the 'Major European Sales' announcement of 29/06/2011:
...Phoslock Water Solutions Limited is pleased to announce excellent recent sales performance from its European operations. Sales for the month of June out of Europe exceeded $800,000, which was a record result.
Encouragingly, orders received were spread across a number of key European markets including Finland, Netherlands and Germany. These projects are scheduled to be executed in the second half of the 2011 calendar year...
Bear in mind that the peak volume of 'blaualgen' searches over the summer of 2018 was more than double that seen in 2010.
The mention of Finland in that old announcement reminded me of another European country that I had forgotten about. As with Germany, the blue-green algae problems in Finland over the warmer months of 2018 seem to have the worst in a decade in that country, with one news site from that country reporting earlier this year that the algae problems in the lakes of that country were the worst since 2007.
The scale of this problem is also apparent in a Finnish article from a few weeks ago, which highlighted the most popular Google searches originating from that country, noting that the many of the most popular searches were related to the unusually hot summer:
...People are looking for information on current phenomena and topics. One particular phenomenon that turned out to be popular was the unusually hot summer, says Google analyst Jaakko Pihlaja in a press release.
The unusually hot summer led to many seeking help and tips, especially for blue-green algae, how to cool down rooms and how to handle heat strokes. Many also sought help for the extraordinary number of wasps...
According to the article, 'blue-green algae' topped the list of the most frequent summer-related terms searched in that country.
One difficulty with Europe is that the large number of languages spoken there mean that it is difficult to work out the nomenclature employed to describe the same problem in different countries, and my suspicion is that many more European countries experienced significant cyanobacteria problems in 2018 than have been previously mentioned.
For example, I mentioned the Dutch term 'blauwalgen' earlier: as with 'blaualgen', this term also saw a massive spike in Google searches over the northern summer of 2018.
However, most of the searches originated not in the Netherlands, but in the Flanders region of northern Belgium, where Dutch is also spoken. This would make sense, given that Belgium shares a border with Luxembourg, where, as noted earlier, blue-green algae was of major concern this year.
So it would seem that all three of the Benelux nations- Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg- were troubled by major outbreaks of cyanobacteria this year.
(20min delay)
