What might cause this "lake" to become red?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Maybe it is just an artifact of the camera or maybe it is red?

It’s on an island off the coast of Belize:

17.569237, -88.240367

2

I don’t know the answer, but here’s a direct map link:

3

Thanks, Chronos.

4

As it doesn’t appear that that’s in an industrial area (so, not human-made pollution), and assuming that the satellite picture is representative of the lake’s actual color, it could be due to algae or bacteria, or soil runoff if there’s a high iron content in the local soil.

5

FWIW, It also shows that red color on MapQuest maps./

6

Usually red water is an algae bloom. The Sea of Galilee turned red last year (and I think also in 2016).

Red Tide is an example of this, but I don’t know that red tide applies to inland lakes. But I also can’t tell if the lake on that island is connected to the sea or what.

Any body of water can have red algae, though.

I guess Belize’s east coast is also having an issue with sargassum, but that is brown and from everything I see is just on sea coasts.

7

The ground looks a weird color too? Is this possibly just something like the wavelength they image with to get through cloud cover or something?

8

Quoth AI (FWIW) :

9

It’s tannins leaching from the bark of red mangrove trees. You can see the same color on other islands in the vicinity, like here:

https://maps.app.goo.gl/iEjB7uAsMxicbnZw9

And this drone photo of a nearby cay that shows it’s a real color, not a Google Maps artifact.

Here are some pictures of red mangroves in Florida.

10

Interesting! Thanks.

11

Which in turn use near infrared to get the sharpest imaging of the coastline.

FWIW I’ll also quote an AI here for some interesting bit - Claude. The red may be both algal bloom and false color!

>The underlying sources do capture NIR. Google Earth’s imagery comes from multiple satellites that are multispectral:
∙ Landsat 8/9 — includes NIR (Band 5)
∙ Sentinel-2 — includes NIR and red-edge bands
∙ Maxar satellites (WorldView-2/3, GeoEye-1) — include NIR<

>Regarding the red lake:
This area of Ambergris Caye has interior lagoons and brackish ponds that are known to experience algal blooms. Specifically:
∙ The northern caye has extensive mangrove wetlands with trapped, poorly-circulating water
∙ These lagoons are subject to cyanobacteria blooms, which produce strong NIR reflectance → red in false-color
∙ Nutrient loading from nearby development in San Pedro has been documented as a stressor on these interior water bodies
Regarding the purplish land:
Northern Ambergris Caye has seen significant land clearing for resort and residential development. The purplish signature fits:
∙ Sandy, cleared, or marl substrate typical of the caye
∙ Sparse dry-season vegetation
∙ Possibly compacted or disturbed ground from construction activity<

12

Oh this also from Claude. FWIW.

>Near-infrared (NIR, ~700–1000 nm) is almost entirely absorbed by water, so it’s used to cleanly delineate the water-land boundary — mangroves, shorelines, and island perimeters show up sharply.<

13

Which, I assume, just uses the same satellite pics?

14

They did not look the same to me.