Major new book surveys nature and culture along Alpine rivers
The vast Alps mountain range is sometimes described as the ‘water tower’ of Europe. This is because a significant proportion (some estimates say 40%) of the continent’s freshwaters originate from its slopes, supplying drinking water to millions of people.
A newly published book provides a comprehensive survey of the diversity, value and uniqueness of Alpine rivers, and the issues relating to their management and future. ‘Rivers of the Alps: Diversity in Nature and Culture’ is the result of a major collaborative effort involving 150 experts from six Alpine countries, led by editors Susanna Muhar, Andreas Muhar, Dominik Siegrist and Gregory Egger.
Over 34 thematic chapters, richly illustrated with images and maps, the book offers a history of Alpine rivers and their geomorphology, which has shaped a range of unique habitats for wildlife. The book then explores how people have settled and used Alpine river landscape over time, covering wide-ranging topics of flood protection, hydropower and transport alongside mythology, tourism and art. The challenges for environmental management that arise from the dynamic human-nature interactions in Alpine river catchments are then considered. Finally, portraits of the individual characteristics of 54 Alpine rivers are offered. Susanna Muhar says: “we as editors aim to contribute to a greater awareness regarding the unique nature and value of Alpine rivers as well as the ways in which they are endangered.”
Alpine rivers: woven threads of nature and culture
The book is timely and important: Alpine landscapes are shaped by their rivers and streams, both physically and culturally, but their complex systems are vulnerable to environmental change. A number of large European rivers – including the Rhine, Rhône, Inn and Po – have headwaters in the Alps, carrying water across the continent to the North, Mediterranean, Adriatic and Black Seas. Alpine river valleys have long been locations of human settlement, with their waters used for drinking, washing and irrigation. In recent centuries, tourists have increasingly explored Alpine valleys, taking advantage of their clear waters for boating, fishing and swimming. Alpine rivers support a unique range of biodiversity. They provide habitat for a number of species, including fish, invertebrates, amphibians, reptiles, mammals and birds.
Dominik Siegrist says: “The Alps are in many ways connected to their rivers. The alpine spaces are formed by the rivers, and the streams and large rivers characterise the Alpine landscapes. In the mountains and valleys, fluvial landscapes are an element of beauty but also the cause of the destruction of infrastructures and settlements. They are a source of drinking water for entire countries. Rivers also donate energy in different ways – for those seeking relaxation as well as for running the turbines of hydropower plants.”
Andreas Muhar continues: “The rivers of the Alps play an important role for the rest of Europe: they provide water and hydropower way beyond the limits of the Alps. The development of human settlements and infrastructure widely followed the course of the rivers. Their valleys form important corridors for transport on the rivers themselves and on roads alongside them. Today’s multi-functional river landscapes require that we find the right balance between utilisation and conservation, as well as integrate demands from many different fields such as energy production, material extraction, flood protection, agriculture, settlement, industry and recreation.”
Multiple pressures on Alpine rivers
However, despite their importance, Alpine rivers are increasingly threatened by human activity. The effects of climate change are being strongly felt in the Alps. In the book’s introduction, Klement Tockner states that air temperatures in the Alps have risen by just under 2°C over the past 100 years – almost twice the global average. Climate warming is changing the pattern and extent of glacier melt in the Alps. In 1876, glaciers covered an area of 1,800km² in the Alps. Climate change has caused the glaciated area to shrink by 40% in Austria and 30% in Switzerland since then, Tockner outlines.
This is important because glacial melt is a key element of the Alpine water cycle. Changing melting patterns alter the amount and timing of river flows downstream, and with it the aquatic ecologies and human livelihoods that rely on them. Climate change models project ongoing increases in air temperature through the 21st Century, with a potential complete loss of Alpine glaciers by the end of the century. This could mean more droughts and low river flows in summer, and more winter flooding and landslides in river valleys in the future.
Alpine river flows are also increasingly altered by hydropower projects. Only a small number of Alpine rivers remain in a ‘near-natural’ free-flowing state because of a recent boom in small hydropower plant construction. The seeming ‘eco-friendly’ credentials of such low-carbon energy production schemes are potentially compromised by the negative effects hydropower can have on the health of the wider river ecosystem.
A collaborative resource to support environmental policy and management
These key issues, and how they might be managed and mitigated through environmental management and policy (such as the Alpine Convention), are central concerns of the book. Editor Gregory Egger explains: “Our book gives the first Alpine-wide overview of all essential topics in the context of rivers and river landscapes. Particular attention is paid to the presentation of the characteristics of Alpine rivers. The book is intended to address both experts and readers interested in nature.”
Susanna Muhar says: “We are facing global changes regarding climate, land use, food and energy production, urban agglomerations and many other challenges. Freshwater ecosystems, and the functions and services they provide, are increasingly affected by these changes. In light of such adversities, it is particularly crucial to preserve those rivers and floodplain corridors that are still dynamic and interconnected. Such systems buffer flood events, provide habitats for reproduction and refugia from disturbances and enable species movements to suitable habitats in other parts of the watershed, particularly in response to transforming environmental conditions such as rising temperatures or changing hydrological regimes.”
‘Rivers of the Alps: Diversity in Nature and Culture’ is the result of extensive interdisciplinary collaboration.
Project manager Kerstin Böck says: “The book is the result of a major geographic project and includes contributions of more than 150 experts from all over the Alpine space. Coordinating this large number of people was sometimes challenging and required patience and a bit of tenacity.
“Over 10,000 mails were exchanged from the start of the project until now, and it took a lot of discussions until the present concept was ready. However, the result speaks for itself and brings together expert knowledge on all the important issues relating to Alpine rivers.”
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Like all plants, aquatic plants rely on carbon to photosynthesise. However, unlike in the open air, carbon dioxide (CO2 ) is not a reliable source of carbon underwater. CO2 doesn’t diffuse efficiently through the water column, and is rapidly depleted as a result. So, how do aquatic plants get the carbon they need to live and grow? And how does this shape the distribution of where different plants are found?
A major new study shows that many aquatic plants have evolved the ability to use inorganic carbon, largely bicarbonate derived from the weathering of rocks and soils, in photosynthesis. Writing in Science, Lars L. Iversen and colleagues show that around half of the 131 global submerged plant species they studied showed this bicarbonate adaptation.
The research team found that plant species with this trait were generally found in water bodies where bicarbonate concentration is high. In other words, where bicarbonate is widely leached from the weathering of soils and rocks (e.g. from limestone and dolomite), aquatic plants have adapted to use it in their life cycles. This is in contrast to terrestrial environments, where plant communities are largely determined by climate, rather than geology.
However, bicarbonate use is not ubiquitous in aquatic plants, for two reasons. First, using bicarbonate in photosynthesis is an active process, and requires energy to process. Second, photosynthesis rates at limiting concentrations of inorganic carbon are higher in plant species that use CO2. In short, bicarbonate dependence might limit photosynthesis rates in some environments.
As a result, the research team found that where CO2 concentrations in a water body are high (and substantially above the air equilibrium) – as is often the case in streams – the benefits of bicarbonate use are reduced. They observed that bicarbonate traits in aquatic plants were rarer in such environments.
The broad trend identified in this groundbreaking new study is that where CO2 is limited in the water column – most often in lakes – aquatic plants have tended to adapt to use bicarbonate as a source of carbon in their life cycles. However, where CO2 is available, plants preferentially use it in photosynthesis, like their terrestrial counterparts do. Thus, bicarbonate use by plants is a response to carbon limitation in aquatic environments, and observed more often in lakes than streams.
The study highlights the extent to which catchment geology and weathering processes can shape the distribution of aquatic plants in lakes and streams. However, human activities such as deforestation and agriculture have the potential to alter biocarbonate concentrations in aquatic environments, with resulting effects on the plant species they support.
The authors suggest that increases in bicarbonate concentrations – for example, as the result of nitrate fertiliser leaching – will have particularly severe impacts on biocarbonate-poor lakes. In such ecosystems, they suggest that plant species composition will significantly alter, as tall, fast-growing bicarbonate users colonise and suppress smaller species adapted to CO2 use alone.
Elsewhere in the same Science issue, aquatic ecologists Rafael Marce and Biel Obrador highlight three key areas of significance in the new study. They write:
“[The study] paves the way for future studies of the impacts of global change on freshwater biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. It highlights the need to develop models for the dynamics of dissolved inorganic carbon in fresh waters that go beyond the mainstream focus on CO2 emissions to the atmosphere. And it constitutes a powerful example of integrative ecology across spatial and temporal scales and knowledge domains.”
The broad-scale, interdisciplinary scope of the new study by Iversen and colleagues reveals new biogeochemical mechanisms that helps us understand the patterns and processes of freshwater biodiversity, and potentially predict global changes that can inform biodiversity conservation planning.
Accordingly, Marce and Obrador suggest that the study strengthens the argument for developing better biogeochemical models of river networks. “Although it is challenging to integrate complex geochemical and biological interactions at large scales, such models paint a more precise picture of the freshwater carbon cycle and better inform multidisciplinary research on biodiversity conservation and Earth-system modelling,” they write.
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Fig 1 detail: (A) Proportion of bicarbonate-using species across 52 plant ecoregions. Gray areas indicate regions where information on bicarbonate use in local plants is not available. (B) Relationship between mean bicarbonate concentration in plant regions and frequency of bicarbonate users. The line represents the mean proportion of bicarbonate users. (C) Density plots of bicarbonate preferences for bicarbonate users (n = 57) and obligate CO2 users (n = 72). The central horizontal black lines represent the means, and the boxes indicate the 95% confidence intervals around the means.
Fig 2 detail: Distribution of two pondweed species with contrasting bicarbonate use in the British Isles. Potamogeton polygonifolius (obligate CO2 user; black triangles) is found in areas with lower bicarbonate concentrations than are present where Potamogeton crispus (bicarbonate user; white circles) is found. The top left inset shows the density distribution of the two species across bicarbonate concentrations. Bicarbonate concentrations are from the global bicarbonate map (fig. S2), and species data were extracted from the geo-referenced plant occurrences.
Europe must put environmental concerns at the heart of Common Agricultural Policy reform, scientists say
Environmental scientists across Europe are campaigning for the European Parliament to take action in response to ‘catastrophic declines’ of birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and insects as a result of intensive agricultural practices across the continent.
Earlier this week a letter signed by 2,500 scientists was sent to the European Parliament arguing that the intensive agricultural practices encouraged by EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) significantly threaten the continent’s biodiversity. There is now “unequivocal scientific consensus” that intensive farming is a key cause of the decline of bird and insect populations documented across the continent in recent decades, the authors state.
The future of the post-2020 CAP – what space for the environment?
Their letter is timed to coincide with ongoing EU debates over the updates made to the next iteration of the CAP, post-2020. The CAP was designed to encourage maximum food production across the EU, which despite attempts to promote agri-environment schemes, has led to “green deserts of uninhabitable maximum-yield monocultures” across the continent, the authors state.
The letter is authored by members of six European biodiversity organisations: European Ornithologists Union; European Mammal Foundation; Societas Europaea Herpetologica; Societas Europaea Lepidopterologica; Butterfly Conservation Europe; and the European Bird Census Council.
They argue for significant policy change, stating that: “A reform of the CAP must deliver sustainable and diversified agriculture through spatially-targeted measures supporting smaller farms which carry out sustainable farming and maintain high nature value farmland.” The post-2020 CAP reform should include significant policy measures which promote biodiversity conservation and restoration in agricultural practices, such as extensive grazing of livestock, they argue.
Such CAP reforms could align the policy with global agreements such as the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals in tackling climate change and biodiversity loss, the authors suggest. They state that: “The EU must be a pioneer in responding to these challenges and the CAP must be part of that response rather than continuing being the cause of greater environmental degradation.”
Agriculture as a driver of freshwater ecosystem pressures
Intensive agriculture is a significant driver of freshwater biodiversity loss and habitat degradation in Europe. It causes a wide range of pressures on freshwater environments, including water abstraction, pollution, water course fragmentation and alteration and soil erosion.
The European Environmental Agency’s 2018 state of European waters report states that agricultural production is the major source of diffuse pollution (of fertilisers and pesticides), which affects around 38% of EU surface waters. As a result, freshwater conservation is a key consideration of any ‘environmental’ CAP reform, particularly in better aligning its implementation with the Water Framework Directive.
European scientists call for support for statement on environmental failings of CAP
Meanwhile, a group of environmental scientists based at European universities have released a statement outlining that CAP “continues to fail biodiversity, climate, soil, land degradation as well as socio-economic challenges especially in rural areas.” The statement, led by Dr. Guy Pe’er from the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research in Leipzig, Germany, frames agriculture as a key driver of environmental degradation across Europe. Submitted for publication in the British Ecological Society’s People and Nature journal, the statement builds on a series of research projects, reports and workshops on the environmental impact of CAP.
The authors call for more scientists to become signatories to their statement, which offers ten action points to move CAP towards delivering sustainable food production, biodiversity conservation, and climate mitigation. A key action point is to use ecosystem services – such as climate change mitigation, and water conservation – as guiding principles for reformed CAP design. In so doing, harmful subsidies (such as Coupled Double Payments for intensive agricultural systems) should be phased out in favour of those which promote environmental health, such as High Nature Value farming systems.
Other action points outline the need for Member States set clear, adequate, measurable and time-bound targets in their strategic plans when fulfilling CAP objectives, and to support innovative methods of agri-environmental support. The authors suggest that a landscape-scale perspective should be adopted in CAP reform, to coordinate agri-environmental schemes between farming practices across larger areas and longer timescales than is currently common. The need for better indicators of success, alongside stronger and more regular environmental monitoring and enforcement is outlined.
Overall, the statement emphasises that there is a wealth of scientific knowledge, best-practice case studies and management decision support tools to guide an effective ‘environmental’ reform of the post-2020 CAP. However, it is important that the CAP update doesn’t allow Member States to choose ‘low-ambition’ implementation which marginalises environmental concerns. Like the letter from the six European biodiversity organisations, the scientists’ statement is clear that the present CAP is failing in its environmental obligations, and that significant reform is necessary to promote more sustainable futures.
You can add your signature to the statement here.
Climate warming is changing Arctic freshwater ecosystems
Biodiversity in arctic lakes, rivers and wetlands is increasingly threatened by climate warming, according to a report published earlier this year. It is suggested that warming is shrinking the extent of what can be considered ‘Arctic’ environments, and with it the range and diversity of aquatic species that they support.
The State of the Arctic Freshwater Biodiversity report was produced by the Circumpolar Biodiversity Monitoring Program Freshwater Group of the Arctic Council Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna (CAFF) Working Group. The report – the first of is kind – provides a synthesis of the state of knowledge about biodiversity in Arctic freshwater ecosystems, and its trends and trajectories.
Patterns of biodiversity vary across the Arctic, with temperature and connection to the mainland two key drivers of biodiversity. In other words, it is generally the coldest and most isolated Arctic islands that support the lowest freshwater biodiversity, and the warmest and most connected (often at lower latitudes) that support the highest biodiversity.
However, warming temperatures across the Arctic are shifting where cold-adapted species can survive. Long-term observations show increasing water temperatures and decreasing ice cover in freshwater ecosystems across many parts of the Arctic. A shift to warmer, wetter climates has the potential to significantly impact aquatic systems: altering the seasonality of water flows; increasing concentrations of dissolved organic matter, sediments, minerals and nutrients in water bodies; and opening up new regions to human settlement and development.
The Arctic Council has eight nation state members: Canada, the Kingdom of Denmark (Greenland), Finland, Iceland, Norway, the Russian Federation, Sweden and the United States (Alaska). The report considers ecosystems in the Arctic Circle, largely at the northern range of these states.
The report suggests that with continued climatic warming, the boundaries of the Arctic climatic zones are expected to shift northwards. In other words, the area of ‘Arctic’ environment in the polar region is expected to shrink.
Warmer water temperatures in Arctic rivers and lakes may increase overall biodiversity, as southern species expand their population range northward. However, specialist cold-adapted and tolerant species which currently occupy Arctic freshwaters are likely to be put at risk, both by their shrinking habitat, and by competition from non-native species.
The report suggests that cold-water endemic species unique to the Arctic, such as the Arctic char, are likely to suffer regional losses, or even local extinctions as a result.
For example, long-term monitoring records from Iceland indicate a declining abundance of Arctic char and increasing dominance of Atlantic salmon and brown trout since the 1980s. This shift has coincided with an increase in spring and autumn water temperatures, which are likely to affect that spawning and hatching cycles of the Arctic char.
Temperature increases are also predicted to cause more cyanobacteria blooms across Arctic freshwaters. Long-term data in the report shows that cyanobacteria blooms – some of which were toxic – were most abundant in Arctic lakes during the warmest years on record. As climate warming continues, such blooms are likely to become more abundant, potentially causing ecological and human health issues.
The research by the Circumpolar Biodiversity Monitoring Program Freshwater Group which underpins the report is designed to help establish a long-term monitoring environmental framework for Arctic freshwaters. This framework is intended to facilitate rapid detection of, and responses to, changes in Arctic water quality and aquatic biodiversity.
Monitoring of Arctic freshwaters is carried out through the identification of Focal Ecosystem Components. These are ‘indicator’ species – such as fish, invertebrates and plants – whose population dynamics can indicate shifts in the wider ecosystem.
The report suggests, however, that existing scientific monitoring is not sufficient to describe freshwater biodiversity in all Arctic ecoregions. This is often due to challenge and cost of monitoring vast and remote areas. The authors argue for the need for increased and better harmonised monitoring efforts across the Arctic to better understand and manage the changes to freshwater ecosystems in this unique region.
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Read The State of Arctic Freshwater Biodiversity report here.
Publishing with the Freshwater Information Platform
Four years after it was first launched, the Freshwater Information Platform continues to grow, providing invaluable resources for freshwater scientists, managers and policy makers. As we have documented on the blog, freshwaters are some of the most threatened ecosystems worldwide, with the latest WWF Living Planet Index showing an 83% reduction in global freshwater biodiversity since 1970. The Freshwater Information Platform is designed to provide the tools to help reverse these trends.
What is the Freshwater Information Platform?
The Freshwater Information Platform hosts data, maps, tools, visuals and texts produced by freshwater ecosystem research activities, largely undertaken in Europe. It makes a rich set of information about freshwater biodiversity and the threats it faces freely-available online. The platform offers a forum for information exchange and the open-access publishing of maps and data, and seeks to stimulate cutting-edge research and collaborations.
The adoption of EU directives seeking to protect biodiversity (such as the Habitats Directive) and water resources (such as the Water Framework Directive) mean that freshwaters are now among the most closely-studied ecosystems. However, the results from scientific research projects are often scattered and dispersed across numerous databases and websites, making them difficult to access and synthesise.
The Freshwater Information Platform provides an open-access and easily navigable repository for this rich information on freshwater biodiversity and ecosystems, offering a wide-ranging and constantly-growing knowledge base to support the management and conservation of our threatened freshwater ecosystems. The lead partners on the platform recently published an open-access journal article about its features and uses in Hydrobiologia.
One of the key aspects of the Freshwater Information Platform is the ability it gives to users to publish and share their freshwater data. This is done in three main ways: the Freshwater Metadatabase and Freshwater Metadata Journal; the Freshwater Biodiversity Data Portal; and the Global Freshwater Biodiversity Atlas. Detailed information on how to publish data through these three channels can be downloaded here.
Freshwater Metadatabase and Freshwater Metadata Journal
There can be many variables in a freshwater dataset: which species and ecosystems it covers; who collected the data, how, where, and when; and how the dataset can be accessed. The Freshwater Metadatabase was established to organise such ‘metadata’ and to make information on datasets more visible to other scientists. The metadatabase allows users to explore more than 300 publicly available datasets to find exactly what they might need for their research. Dataset metadata can also be contributed to the Platform through an easy to use multi-lingual interface in English, German, French and Dutch.
Providing metadata – which often takes many hours of work and significant funding to produce and process – to an open-access platform for others to use might seem a thankless task. However, the Freshwater Metadata Journal allows contributors to publish the metadata of their datasets as a journal article, making their contribution citable and traceable with a Digital Object Identifier (DOI), just like any other scientific paper. In other words, the open-access sharing of data benefits everyone. There are currently more than 40 open-access articles on a variety of freshwater related datasets published through the Freshwater Metadata Journal.
The Freshwater Biodiversity Data Portal
Knowledge about freshwater species distributions, trends and threats is vital in designing effective conservation and restoration strategies. Since the start of the EU-funded BioFresh project in 2010, researchers across Europe have been collaborating to access and unite scattered biodiversity data, resulting in the Freshwater Biodiversity Data Portal, now hosted on the Freshwater Information Platform website.
The portal provides freshwater species information and occurrence records. Since the end of the BioFresh project in 2014, distribution data are now published using the Freshwater Information Platform’s Integrated Publishing Toolkit (IPT), which links them to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF).
The portal’s data is currently being harmonised with the rich datasets held by GBIF through the recently established ‘Freshwater Network’. In collaboration with the GBIF secretariat the Freshwater Network aims to create more visibility for published freshwater distribution data and also to help finding data for freshwater research. This Network is still under development and seeks the collaboration with other freshwater data publishing units.
Global Freshwater Biodiversity Atlas
Maps are valuable tools for exploring and visualising biodiversity datasets, often providing an engaging means of communicating information with policy makers and the public. The Global Freshwater Biodiversity Atlas is an interactive, open-access gateway for users to visually explore the distribution of freshwater biodiversity, from local to global scales.
The Atlas currently holds over 50 interactive maps, organised across four thematic chapters: freshwater biodiversity; freshwater ecosystems; freshwater pressures and impacts; and freshwater conservation and management. Each map is captioned by a short text outlining its context, and linked to the original publications, which also makes them valuable for educational use. The Atlas is constantly growing as new maps and data are added to the database.
A long-term interdisciplinary partnership
Initiated by the BioFresh project in 2015, the Freshwater Information Platform will be maintained in the long-term by the commitment of four institutional partners: University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Institute of Hydrobiology and Aquatic Ecosystem Management (BOKU), Vienna, Austria; University Duisburg-Essen, Department Aquatic Ecology (UDE), Essen, Germany; Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Brussels, Belgium; and the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB), Berlin, Germany. The Freshwater Information Platform is currently seeking new institutional supporters – please get in touch for more information.
The Freshwater Information Platform is affiliated to the Alliance for Freshwater Life – an interdisciplinary network of scientists, conservationists, educators, policy experts, creative professionals, and the public, working to improve the conservation and sustainable use of freshwater ecosystems and their biodiversity. The Alliance will build upon the dissemination and data publishing unit of the Freshwater Information Platform.
The Freshwater Information Platform is an expanding network and welcomes supporters, contributors and friends to help implementing its vision and mission.
More information:
Global Swimways: conserving migratory fish populations
Migratory bird populations have long been supported through conservation schemes protecting their flight paths (which often span across continents and oceans). The mapping of such ‘flyways’ – used by millions of birds – allows for habitats at key stop-off points to be conserved and restored through protected area designations such as Ramsar wetland sites. Migratory bird flyways circle the world, and so protecting such key sites – variously used for feeding, breeding and over-wintering by different species – are crucial is crucial for the conservation of migratory bird populations on a global scale.
The term ‘flyway’ was coined by the American biologist Frederick Lincoln 1935 in an effort to describe migratory birds’ ‘ancestral routes’ of movement across seasons. The concept has been since been widely taken up in bird conservation – it’s a key idea in BirdLife International’s protected area planning, for example. Advances in tracking technologies are increasingly allowing scientists to understand not only to map and protect bird ‘flyways’, but also to observe how they are changing in response to pressures such as climate change, urbanisation and deforestation.
In comparison, the conservation of global migratory freshwater fish populations is lacking. Migratory fish species may travel thousands of miles between their spawning and feeding grounds, often moving between marine and freshwater habitats. The health of migratory fish populations therefore requires healthy, connected ecosystems which span both biogeographical and political boundaries. Many migratory fish species are important in sustaining human livelihoods, whilst others – such as the Atlantic salmon and Beluga sturgeon – are cultural icons which may act as ‘flagships’ for the conservation of wider ecosystems.
However, migratory fish species are in decline across the world as a result of multiple human pressures. Dam and weir construction can block migratory routes up river systems, water abstraction and pollution can destroy spawning grounds, whilst changing water temperatures as a result of climate change can alter food availability for migratory species. At present, though, too little is known about the status of many global migratory fish species and their conservation needs.
In response, a new ‘Global Swimways’ project has been launched this month, aiming to apply the insights of the ‘flyway’ concept to global migratory fish conservation. As part of this project, scientists will create the first global map of fish migration routes, identifying migration hotspots or ‘swimways’ and develop a new tool that highlights presence of migration routes near existing or planned infrastructure.
“Since the 1930s, people have developed and utilised the concept of flyways for the conservation of birds. They realised that in a world of changing habitats and building threats, you need global cooperation. It has led to successful agreements such as the Ramsar convention and international policies for conservation of ecological hotspots,” says Dr. William Darwall, project lead of the Global Swimways project, and Head of the Freshwater Biodiversity Unit of IUCNs Global Species Programme.
“We believe we can similarly use this developing concept of swimways for migratory fish and aim, through this project, to gain the momentum for taking this forwards as a tool to inform global policy and raise awareness leading to action. As soon as we have increased our knowledge and understanding of individual species migration routes, we will set criteria to identify swimways as globally important migration corridors.”
The project is a partnership between IUCN, the UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre, the University of Cambridge and the World Fish Migration Foundation. It is intended that the ‘swimways’ concept will help strengthen arguments for the conservation of migratory fish with policy makers. The project aims to raise awareness of the economic and cultural value of migratory fish, alongside their vulnerabilities to development along migration routes.
It is intended that the project will help inform the cost-benefit analyses made in planning large-scale dams and hydropower constructions (which are booming across the world). In other words, the Global Swimways project intends to highlight the value of global migratory fish and their remarkable life-cycles in an effort to strengthen their conservation and restoration.
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Find out more about the ‘Global Swimways’ project here.
Explore the ‘Swimways of the World’ map produced for World Fish Migration Day.
Bending the curve of freshwater biodiversity decline
What are the most significant and pressing freshwater biodiversity research questions that, if answered, would improve our ability to understand the state of freshwater biodiversity and improve its management and restoration, now and in the future?
This is the question asked by researchers affiliated with the Alliance for Freshwater Life as part of a new ‘horizon scanning’ research project seeking to identify the big questions in freshwater science, policy and conservation.
Horizon scanning research in conservation
Such horizon scanning projects have increased in popularity in recent years in environmental conservation, often creating valuable resources for students, academics, policy makers and environmental managers. For the last ten years, Prof. William Sutherland from the Conservation Science Group at the University of Cambridge, UK has been leading horizon scanning research for global conservation issues in collaboration with colleagues from across the world. This work is carried out using literature reviews and surveys with experts and stakeholders.
Sutherland and colleagues highlight that horizon scanning research is particularly good at ‘closing the gap’ between academia and policy-making by identifying key research questions of common interest. Their 2019 review of emerging issues for conservation includes a number of freshwater topics, including meltwater from Antarctic ice sheets and the environmental impacts of a planned 6188 km canal in Northern China.
Emerging issues in freshwater conservation
A classic review paper of emerging issues for freshwater conservation was published by Prof. David Dudgeon and colleagues in 2007. One of their opening statements – “Fresh water makes up only 0.01% of the World’s water and approximately 0.8 % of the Earth’s surface, yet this tiny fraction of global water supports at least 100 000 species out of approximately 1.8 million ‐ almost 6% of all described species” – is routinely cited across academia, policy and management circles.
Similarly, their identification of five key issues – over-exploitation; water pollution; flow modification; destruction or degradation of habitat; and invasion by exotic species (with climate change added in a 2010 follow up paper) – remain central to freshwater conservation debates and practice.
‘Bending the curve’ of global freshwater biodiversity decline
Whilst there are a growing number of horizon scanning research projects focusing on freshwaters (for example), the new call by Alliance for Freshwater Life researchers aims to provide a comprehensive of the key research topics, both now and in the future. In this way, they hope to generate and synthesise global knowledge and expertise to help ‘bend the curve’ of global freshwater biodiversity declines – in other words, to address the downward trajectory of many freshwater species and ecosystems across the world.
The ‘bend the curve’ phrase was used last year in a paper by Prof Georgina Mace and colleagues, who argued that the development of the post-2020 strategic plan for the Convention on Biological Diversity provides a vital window of opportunity to set out an ambitious plan of action to restore global biodiversity.
Meagan Harper, a graduate student at Carleton University, Canada who is co-ordinating Alliance for Freshwater Life survey says: “Freshwater biodiversity has been experiencing population declines at as much as twice that experienced in marine and terrestrial ecosystems. While we have known about the problems facing freshwater biodiversity for a while, coordination among groups trying to improve freshwater biodiversity has been slow.
“We think this call for questions, and the research agenda that will be produced, will help increase this coordination among researchers and policy makers, and will help increase our understanding of where gaps in our current knowledge are impeding progress in freshwater biodiversity conservation.”
“We are hoping to accomplish several things with this project,” Harper continues. “First, to produce a research agenda or guide that would provide ideas for early career researchers or fundamentally-oriented researchers on how to engage in applied freshwater biodiversity science. Second, to signal to funders and managers/policy makers where additional research is needed. And third, to identify common projects for groups like Alliance for Freshwater Life, Shoal, and InFish, among others, as well as areas where we as a community can invest our efforts.”
“Ultimately, our purpose in creating this list is to help in the effort to stop, or even reverse, the current trajectory of freshwater biodiversity loss, to ‘bend the curve’ for freshwater biodiversity,” Harper concludes.
You can take part in their Alliance for Freshwater Life horizon scanning survey here.
Vivid and lively aquatic worlds: the art of Jacek Matysiak
We recently came across the work of illustrator and designer Jacek Matysiak, and were so impressed that we knew we wanted to share it with you. Jacek is based in Dublin, Ireland, and his work provides a unique window onto the natural world. We caught with him recently to find out more.
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Freshwater Blog: Your illustration and design work is focused on images of the natural world — what inspired you to take this direction? And how did you get started?
Jacek Matysiak: I grew up in a town that was surrounded by beautiful lakes, rivers and conifer forests; the proximity to nature and ease of access have eventually given me some ideas to capture the mood of wilderness in a more creative and artistic way. I was initially more drawn to photography but eventually discovered the medium of illustration and started to enjoy it much more, as it gave me broader opportunities.
FB: There are some iconic freshwater animals in your portfolio — arowana, pike and osprey to name three. What draws you to aquatic environments, and what are some of the challenges and opportunities of depicting them?
JM: I have spent most of my life near freshwater environments, and heading to a fishing weekend trip, kayaking on a lake or spending a day out in a forest is a common activity throughout most of the year. Naturally you would be observing creatures like freshwater fish, majestic birds of prey and mammals that came up close to the water.
The biggest challenge is to avoid creating very generic images in your art. I see a lot of good work that is depicted in a very realistic and nearly scientific way. Even though I want to achieve a certain degree of accuracy, I also strive to give my characters more cartoon-like features and stylize them in a particular way.
FB: What is your process? Do you undertake fieldwork, or work largely in the studio? What are your tools and materials?
JM: It is a combination of both really. Whenever I can afford it, I do spend a lot of time in the wild and try to capture the look and feel of the environment, observing the landscape, taking various photographs and doing quick sketches but sometimes I inevitably have to rely on other resources.
I work at home or sometimes in a cafe. For sketching I use mainly pencils, color pencils and lately posca pens. For finished work I complete my artwork largely in Illustrator and often do some additional coloring and add textures in Photoshop.
FB: Tell us about Obscure Cycle — your book about the eel life cycle. What drew you to this fascinating creature, and how did you go about depicting it?
JM: As you say, an eel is such a phenomenal creature that it simply creates a great story on its own. Last year I was very eager to do a small picture book about a fish, and initially had a pike in mind, but eventually went for an eel, as there is so much more to write about it.
The book is constructed in a form of a loop, with the beginning and end in the Sargasso Sea, depicting eel’s treacherous journey. I wanted people to find out more about eels and stop dismissing them as ugly and creepy cadaver eaters. It is also important that people understand how endangered eels are and how serious the problem of glass eel trafficking is.
You write on your website that you put a ‘strong emphasis on vivid and lively colors, highlighting the beauty and diversity of our planet.’ What role can the creative arts play in highlighting (and even helping address) environmental problems?
Art is a brilliant form of expression and I think it can help bridge the gap between the scientific and common perception of natural environment. Through the use of appealing and powerful images we can reach a much broader audience that we normally would and engage people of different ages in understanding the key environmental issues.
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Climate change increases flooding in some European regions and decreases it in others
Human-driven climate change is causing significant changes to the pattern and extent of river floods in Europe, according to a major new study.
A large, multi-national team of researchers analysed river flow data from 3,738 of catchments taken over a 50 year period between 1960 and 2010. Writing in the journal Nature, the team – led by Prof Günter Blöschl and Dr Julia Hall – outline clear regional patterns in the data.
Regional flood discharge trends in Europe range from an increase of around 11% per decade to a decrease of 23%. The study authors identify three European regions where flooding has either increased or decreased over the study period.
Regional patterns of flooding change
Increasing autumn and winter rainfall – and the resulting wetter soils – over the last 50 years in northwestern Europe has caused an increase in flooding. Around 69% of river flow stations in this region show an increasing flood trend, with an average local increase of flow of 2.3% per decade.
In medium and large catchments in southern Europe, floods are decreasing because of lower rainfall and increasing evaporation from the soil. However, in some Mediterranean areas, small rivers can experience more floods due to frequent thunderstorms and alterations to their catchments, such as deforestation. In this region, around 74% of stations show a decreasing flood trend, with a regional average decrease in flow of 5% per decade.
In Eastern Europe, flood levels are decreasing due to less extensive spring snow cover, a shift to rainfall (rather than snow), and earlier snowmelt as a result of higher air temperatures. However, extreme precipitation in the summer has increased in the summer in this region. Here, around 78% of stations show a decreasing flood trend, with an average decrease in flow of 6% per decade.
Joint lead author of the study, Professor Günter Blöschl of the Vienna University of Technology, says: “We already knew that climate change is shifting the timing of floods in a year, but the key question had been, ‘Does climate change also control the magnitude of flood events?’. Our study did in fact find there are consistent patterns of flood change across Europe and these are in line with predicted climate change impacts, such as a contrast between increasing severity of flooding in the north and decreases in the south.”
Jamie Hannaford of the UK‘s Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, one of the scientists who was involved in the research, says: “This timely study adds to a growing body of evidence that shows that flood magnitude has increased in the UK over the last five decades, particularly in parts of northern and western Britain.
“We show this is part of a continent-wide pattern of changes in flooding which is in line with what we may expect in a warming world. This highlights the importance of long-term hydrological monitoring and the benefits of data sharing and collaboration at a European scale in order to better understand the mechanisms behind observed changes in flooding.”
Flood risk management
The research team’s results have implications for flood risk management in European river catchments. River managers often use the ‘return period’ concept to model how often floods of a certain size (and impact) will recur in their catchments.
The study authors highlight that in regions with increasing flood discharges, the 100-year flood discharge of 50 years ago now has a return period shorter than 100 years. In other words, large floods now be expected more regularly. As a result, the flood defences built to mitigate the risk of extreme flooding may no longer be sufficient.
In contrast, in regions where flooding is decreasing (such as Eastern Europe), the return period of large floods is increasing. The authors estimate that large floods which happened only once every 100 years, will now have a 125 to 250 year return period.
The study authors suggest that changing patterns of flood risk driven by climate change across Europe must be taken seriously by policy makers in order to mitigate the potential devastating impact on affected communities.
Dr Neil Macdonald of the University of Liverpool, a co-author of the study, says: “Flood management must adapt to the realities of our changing climate and associated flood risk over the coming decades.”
Dr Thomas Kjeldsen of the University of Bath, another co-author, adds: “Incorporating the evidence of increasing flood risk into engineering design and general flood management would ensure we are better prepared for future changes – a point also raised in the UK Government’s National Flood Resilience Review.”
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A guest blog by Dr. Paul Jepson, Nature Recovery Lead at Ecosulis Ltd.
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On a hot Saturday in June I rolled up at the UK’s National Water Sport Centre. The place was abuzz with cars, kayaks, club flags and paddle-carrying athletes chatting bucket starts, heats, duck tape and Nelos. Everyone was readying to race on a highly engineered stretch of freshwater. It looked and felt a world apart from my world of conservation science and policy. Yet walking along with my daughter to get her kayak weighed, I spied a Wildlife Trusts flag and two fellow conservationists raising awareness of biosecurity and invasive species.
Gemma Rose and Helen Carter-Emsell work for North Wales Wildlife Trust, and had made the 120 mile journey to Nottingham to promote good conservation practices among kayakers. Gemma explained that the River Dee, which rises in Snowdonia and flows into the sea near Chester on the Welsh / English border, is rich in native wildlife but also hugely popular with canoeists.
“Invasive species represent a key threat to the Dee river system, and we are worried that people who use rivers for recreational activities such as canoeing have the potential to bring in invasive species and also transport ours to other river systems. The Welsh Government share these concerns and fund the Trust’s ‘Our River Wellbeing Project’ within the Dee catchment,” Gemma said.
The Trust has teamed up with British Canoeing and the GB Non-Native Species Secretariat to raise awareness among canoeists of invasive species and the damage they can do to aquatic systems.
“Fragments of crassula or balsam seeds can get inside the boat and lodge under seats and foot pumps, on paddles, spray decks and clothes,” explained Helen. “We are asking kayakers to check clean and dry their boat and kit after races, so they don’t transfer invasive species from river to river. We want to protect our native species.”
The ‘check, clean and dry’ message emblazoned on the awareness materials was clear and simple, and Gemma and Helen’s dedication to spray washing kayaks provide a practical demonstration of what was needed. However, adopting this practice didn’t seem that straightforward to the kayakers whose ways I had come to know a little in my role as a ‘supportive Dad’.
I wandered back through the throng of competitors and supporters to the Falcon club’s gazebo overlooking the race water. I slumped into a camping chair next to Keith Long, another Dad and a keystone volunteer for the club, and together we worked through what it would take to reduce the risk of canoeists spreading invasive species from river to river.
The first thing to mention is that canoeing is both a sport and a leisure pastime. Many people own their own leisure canoes, but the focus of our discussion was the club and sporting aspect of the hobby. This is organised into three disciplines: sprint, slalom and marathon. The first two are Olympic disciplines and are centred around purpose-built facilities.
Marathon is the popular every-day club sport with regular races organised and hosted by different clubs. Transporting kayaks from river-to-canal-to-river system is part of marathon racing and this is where the greatest risk of transferring invasive species lies.
Parked behind us was the club trailer. Keith told how he can transport 22 kayaks on the trailer and another 4 on his van roof if need be. “At marathon races we are parked up on grass fields. There are a hundred or more boats and no wash down facilities,” Keith pointed out. “People get home from races tired and cold, so they just shove their kayak in the boat shed and take it out for the next training session.”
Working though the practicalities of ‘check, clean and dry’ we agreed that realistically this could only happen back at a club, but this would require a facility to ensure that any washed-off invasive species do not enter the local watercourse. It wasn’t hard to come up with a design – a rectangular trough filled with different grades of gravel, wiring for a couple of spray washers, and fixed boat supports.
Although the costs of installing wash-down facilities wouldn’t be massive it would be beyond the means of most clubs. Controlling invasive species is clearly a public good, and this should be something government agencies should support.
The next challenge would be to get kayakers to adopt the practice of washing down boats and equipment after they have travelled between river systems. We discussed the possibility of juniors doing this as way to build awareness ‘youth-up’ and at the same time install values of volunteering and ‘giving back’ that are so important in club and community life. “Give them the opportunity to use a spray washer!” exclaimed Keith. “They’d love it – under proper supervision of course!”
Responding to an early version of this blog, a colleague from the Environment Agency pointed out that there are battery-powered spray-washers. This opens the possibility of washing down kayaks on riverbanks after racing, which is the ideal from a biosecurity perspective. One option would be for race committees to introduce a biosecurity check after races. Kayakers are required to go through a boat check for buoyancy and numbers ahead of racing so this would represent an extension of current practice. However, host clubs need to mobilise nine to twelve volunteers in shifts to run the pre-race checks. Adding a more time consuming and messy second boat check would likely beyond the volunteer capacity of most clubs.
Equally problematic is the last component of the ‘check, clean, dry’ message. Gemma was keen to stress that leaving boats to dry in UV light for 48 hours was the surest way to kill off hitchhiking non-native species. Unfortunately, most kayakers lack the space and security to leave boats outside and UV light can weaken their construction. I asked Lucy Bagnall from Kirton Kayaks for an expert opinion on this last point. She explained that, “racing kayaks are increasingly constructed from epoxy resins that bind well with carbon fibres but can become unstable when exposed to UV-light. This is why manufacture’s warranties and care guidelines state that boats should not be left in the sun.”
Richard Atkinson, Waterways and Environment Policy Officer with British Canoeing commented, “Invasive species are top of my list of policy priorities. We have just begun our journey of engaging canoers in practice to reduce this. We are still working through practicalities and ways to engage the clubs. Our partnership with the Wildlife Trusts is a great step. As well as kayakers to adopt biosecurity practices we are also mobilising canoers to help in the removal of invasive species such as pennywort and clear up plastic debris.”
Driving home I reflected on the notion of policy engagement and how this needs to be a journey of co-learning where policy professionals move beyond simple awareness messages to actively research and embrace the culture and practices of those whose behaviours they seek to influence. There are several points of alignment between kayaking life and good biosecurity practice. But there are also very real points of divergence. As my daughter noted, “We all know that its best to wash gunk and salt of our boats after races. But when you get off the water exhausted and with numb hands it’s the last thing you want to do!”
The control of invasive species is a public good and this places a responsibility on competent government agencies to provide the resources and finance to work with canoe clubs to co-design a practical approach to aquatic biosecurity.
The Freshwater Blog 
