Investigating the effects of water releases from hydropower on Alpine stream ecosystems
The HyTEC field station in the Austrian Alps. Image: Christian Feld
Hydropower plants often produce electricity in response to energy demands. This means that their energy production can be intermittent and changeable, which in turn causes fluctuating releases of water downstream into river systems.
This causes rapid and short-term fluctuations in water speed, depth and quantity downstream – a process termed hydropeaking – which can affect the ecology and hydromorphology of the rivers exposed to such changeable and often unpredictable regimes.
Fluctuations in water flow can also alter the temperature of the river downstream – causing reductions in summer and increases in winter – a process termed thermopeaking. Hydropeaking and thermopeaking from hydropower releases are now widespread and common occurrences in many European mountain rivers and streams.
HyTEC experiments in the Austrian Alps
A team of researchers from the EU MARS Project are carrying out ongoing experiments on the effects of hydropeaking and thermopeaking on aquatic life at a facility known as HyTEC close to Lake Lunz in the Austrian Alps.
The team have studied how algae and macroinvertebrate populations are impacted by hydropower releases, using a series of experimental channels where variables such as water flow and temperature can be controlled and ecological responses monitored.
The effects of hydropeaking and nutrient addition on benthic algae growth
Benthic algae are a key component of aquatic food webs. They are useful indicators of stream water quality, and their short lifecycles mean that algae populations can provide ongoing, responsive records of environmental change. Frequent hydropeaking events can affect the growth of benthic algae and affect their community structures and ability to colonise new habitats. Algae can be washed away in floods, or left stranded by areas close to the shoreline drying up after a flood.
The MARS team simulated hydropeaking events for one hour each day for a month in four experimental channels. One channel was kept as a control, one had nitrogen added, one had phosphorous added, and one had both phosphorous and nitrogen added. These nutrient additions were used to investigate the multiple stress effects of hydropeaking in stream ecosystems affected by nutrient pollution.
Antagonistic relationships between hydropeaking and nutrient addition
After a month, where no nutrients were added, algal growth was significantly higher in the channels with no hydro- or thermopeaking, compared to those where it was simulated. Where no hydro- or thermopeaking was simulated, algal growth was highest in the channels where phosphorous had been added. A shift in the assemblage was observed in these high growth channels from diatom-dominated to algae (chlorphyta)-dominated.
However, where both hydro- and thermopeaks were simulated and nutrients were added, there were no significant differences in algal growth between the different channels. This means that one hour of hydro- and thermopeaking each day cancelled out any potential algal growth following nutrient addition. This is termed an antagonistic relationship between stressors.
The effects of hydropeaking and thermopeaking on macroinvertebrate drifting
Macroinvertebrates are animals without a backbone that can be seen with the naked eye: taxa such as mayflies, beetles, caddisflies, dragonflies, worms and crustaceans. They are important links in the food web between producers (such as algae) and consumers (such as fish). Many macroinvertebrates are sensitive to water quality and so their populations provide excellent indicators for environmental change.
Some macroinvertebrate species ‘drift’ across and along a stream’s course throughout their lifecycles, (re)colonising habitats. This drifting behaviour is increasingly recognised by scientists as an important process in shaping ecosystem structure and function in rivers and streams.
The MARS team used experimental channels to study how hydropeaking and thermopeaking affected drifting behaviour of marcoinvertebrate taxa, and how this behaviour differed during the day and during the night.
Drifting highest at night under hydropeaking and thermopeaking
The first results from their experiments indicate significant differences between macroinvertebrate drifting behaviour in response to hydropeaking, thermopeaking and time of day.
Drifting behaviour was highest where only hydropeaking was simulated, and was lower under combined hydropeaking-thermopeaking conditions. For both simulations, drifting behaviour was highest at night, and significantly higher than drifting behaviour of macroinvertebrates in the control experiments under normal conditions.
The team identified specific drifting traits for macroinvertebrate species. Those that were likely to drift tended to be swimming surface taxa with small body sizes and cased caddisflies. On the other hand, those less likely to drift were clinging or burrowing interstice taxa, with large body sizes and caseless caddisflies.
Initial results for ongoing research at HyTEC
This initial research from the HyTEC experiments has indicated that hydropeaking and thermopeaking have significant effects on the growth of benthic algae and on the drifting behaviour of macroinvertebrates in stream ecosystems.
The HyTEC experiments on hydropeaking continue, with ongoing research questions including whether macroinvertebrate drift behaviour effects juvenile fish populations and if hydropeaking and thermopeaking affect the top-down control of benthic algae by macroinvertebrates.
Identifying early risks for environmental policies
A rusting ship on the dry Aral Sea. Image: kvitlauk | Creative Commons
We live in a world that never stays still. People and places are ever more globally interconnected, dynamic and developing. Technological innovations feed into new cycles of use, waste and pollution. Ecosystems flux over time and space through invasions and introductions, novel assemblages and emergent patterns.
Circling all of this, scientific consensus predicts an increasingly variable and warming climate in the century to come. An age that could well be ratified later this year as a new geological epoch, fundamentally shaped by human activity and known as the Anthropocene.
How can environmental policy makers deal with such complexity and dynamism in a world they seek to positively influence? How can environmental policies anticipate the changes of uncertain future worlds? And what research programs, early warning systems and governance structures are needed to make such ‘anticipatory policy making’ a reality?
A new Science for Environmental Policy ‘Future Brief’ addresses these questions by examining a range of tools and approaches that can be used to identify emerging environmental risks. The approaches examined include strategic foresight tools, scanning of the internet for information, citizen science and state-of-the-art monitoring technologies. Produced for the European Commission DG Environment by the Science Communication Unit, UWE in Bristol, the Future Brief then discusses the policy implications of this range of new approaches.
The Brief contains many examples of new developments from freshwater science and policy, and is summarised below. It can be read in full here.
***
Two key terms can help us better understand the issues raised by the Future Brief. Risks may be predicted and/or detected by early warning systems such as river gauging networks and remote sensors. Identifying and quantifying the risk of flooding, for example, at an early stage gives environmental managers a better chance of mitigating its negative effects (e.g. through evacuation, temporary flood barriers, provision of clean water and food, and so on).
The UNEP defines four key elements for early warning systems: risk knowledge, monitoring and predicting, disseminating information, and responses. However, the authors of the Future Brief suggest that one or more of these elements is usually lacking in the real world. The Brief outlines the many challenges in designing early warning systems, particularly in the trade-offs between rapidity of response and accuracy of risk detection; and the need for decision-making using partial or uncertain monitoring data.
Whist environmental monitoring is increasingly supported by the European Commission for identifying threats, such early warning systems need to be constantly developed and updated to account for emerging environmental risks. Emerging risks are risks that are new; or familiar risks that are presented in new or novel conditions. An example of an emerging risk is the growing number of new chemical pollutants entering freshwater systems, as addressed by the EU SOLUTIONS project. Emerging risks can be organised by their ‘knowability’. Using a NASA typology (made famous in a Donald Rumsfeld speech), emerging risks may be:
- Known knowns: risks we are aware of and understand;
- Known unknowns: risks we are aware of but do not understand, usually due to a lack of comprehensive research (as is the case for multiple stressors in aquatic ecosystems);
- Unknown knowns: risks we understand but are not aware of;
- Unknown unknowns: risks we are neither aware of nor understand.
Of these risks, ‘Unknown unknowns’ pose a big challenge. These are risks that emerge from new or unknown hazards (for example, new pollutants or rapid climatic changes) that if undetected may lead to major environmental problems. Catastrophic examples of these (for example the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami) are termed ‘black swans‘, or extremely rare and unpredictable events.
Despite this uncertainty, increasingly advanced and adaptive environmental monitoring systems allow us to predict emerging risks. The new Future Brief examines five of these approaches.
Early warning signals from foresight approaches
Foresight approaches gather information on different future possibilities for natural and human systems to predict the range of trajectories they make take, and design suitable management strategies to mitigate emerging environmental risks. The two main foresight approaches are horizon scanning and scenario planning.
Horizon scanning involves compiling and reviewing all available research and monitoring data on an topic to identify emerging issues and knowledge deficiencies. For example, the UK based Cambridge Conservation Initiative undergo a yearly horizon scanning exercise for global conservation issues (download the latest one here). Horizon scanning was used by the 2013-15 review panel for the Ramsar Convention, an international treaty for the conservation and sustainable utilisation of wetlands, to identify emerging issues for wetland policy and conservation.
Scenario planning is a broader and more speculative means of anticipating future environments. Often based on a mix of historical data, expert judgement, stakeholder inputs and predictive models, scenario plans develop a range of narratives on how the world might develop in the future. Scenarios are particularly useful for imagining emerging low-probability ‘unknown unknown’ risks. One recent freshwater example of scenario plans are those developed by the MARS project, predicting the future of Europe’s freshwaters.
Early warning signals from technology
Technological advances allow scientists and policy makers to predict many emerging risks with increasing precision. Monitoring technologies can range in scale from tiny water pollution sensors in individual water bodies, to satellites orbiting the earth to detect global rainfall patterns. Chemical monitoring of European freshwaters has historically focused on ‘known known’ priority substances in the Water Framework Directive: those which are known to cause harm to aquatic life and water quality.
Techniques to detect ‘unknown’ chemical pollutants in freshwaters include ‘non-target screening‘ using liquid chromatography to separate the elements found in a water sample, and bioindicators and bioassays which determine the presence of a pollutant through known effects on other biological elements. Such monitoring systems can give continuous data-streams of information on pollutants in an ecosystem.
The EU SOLUTIONS project is working with new monitoring technologies in an effort to better assess and monitor clusters of emerging chemical pollutants in freshwaters. Here, ‘multiple stressor‘ effects add another layer of uncertainty to our understanding of emerging risks.
Early warning signals from citizen science
Environmental citizen science involves members of the public monitoring patterns and processes in the natural world. An evolution of historical amateur naturalist groups, citizen science programs often now take advantage of cutting-edge technologies such as smartphones, apps, GPS and portable microphones to allow the public to quantitatively document elements of the environment. The data collected – species identifications and counts, invasive species monitoring, water levels, and so on – can then be brought together to give environmental managers up-to-date information on changes in the environment.
Such indicators – for example, the spread of an invasive species such as the signal crayfish – can provide early warning systems in areas not covered by scientific monitoring programs. Citizen science is not without its challenges: often relying on public access to (often expensive) personal technologies, often focusing on terrestrial environments only, and requiring investment in digital training and infrastructure to ensure that the data collected is as accurate and appropriate as possible.
Early warning signals from online media monitoring
Like citizen science, media monitoring is an old approach that is being increasingly invigorated by modern technologies. Scanning software is being developed to monitor keywords and phrases in online public communications such as social media, discussion boards and news-sites. Details of emerging risks and threats to the environment can then be ‘crowdsourced’ through monitoring online discussions.
For example, MediSys is an internet monitoring and analysis system that scans information from the European Media Monitor software that gathers reports from worldwide news portals – in 60 different languages – to rapidly identify potential threats to public health. These threats include toxins, bioterrorism, bacteria and viruses, pesticides and nuclear threats amongst others. MediSys is used by the European Commission Health and Food Safety Directorate-General to provide automated early warnings of emerging threats to human health to policy makers and the public.
Early warning signals from rate-change theories
In recent decades, our theories of environmental processes have broadly shifted towards complexity, dynamism, chaos and uncertainty. So called ‘state-shifts‘ have become a key topic for systems ecologists, describing how ecosystems can shift abruptly and irreversibly from one state to another (e.g. forest to savanna) in response to stress and alteration. The biologist Paul Ehrlich used a ‘rivet popping’ metaphor to describe how an altered ecosystem may act like an aeroplane which is gradually having its rivets removed in flight. In Ehrlich’s metaphor, species are the rivets holding an ecosystem together, and their extinctions are like rivet removals. The aeroplane is likely to stay in the air for some time, until a ‘tipping point‘ is reached when it falls apart and crashes (although metaphor has been questioned, for example by Richard Hobbs and colleagues).
Whilst it is difficult to accurately predict such tipping points, systems theorists are increasingly developing a theory known as Critical Slowing Down to give early warnings of when a system may be approaching a critical threshold. For example, ecologist Steve Carpenter and colleagues undertook a long-term experiment in an American lake (pdf) to identify statistical early warning systems for state-shifts in the aquatic food web. Over three years, they gradually added largemouth bass – a top predator – to the lake. This caused a state-shift from an algae-filled ecosystem with abundant prey fish populations to a clear lake dominated by the bass.
Working with critical slowing down theory, Carpenter and colleagues identified changes in the food web in the year before the ecosystem’s tipping point. Such research is extremely useful to environmental managers and policy makers seeking to implement continuous monitoring programs, providing new approaches for early warning systems which detect potential significant environmental changes.
***
The range of approaches outlined by the new Future Brief demonstrate how new technologies, theoretical advances and better monitoring data are all helping policy makers deal with an increasingly complex and dynamic world. The challenge is to address the needs of current societies and environments, whilst anticipating how they might change in the future. You can read the Future Brief in full here.
M is for mayflies
It’s that time of year again: when for a few short weeks the surface of freshwaters across the world will come alive with the movement of clouds of dancing mayflies.
We’ve featured this wonderful insect extensively in the past. Craig Macadam of the Riverflies Partnership wrote excellent two articles, ‘The mayfly’s lifecycle: a fascinating, fleeting story‘ and ‘The curious history of the mayfly‘.
Paul Gaskell of the Wild Trout Trust wrote a great piece ‘Mayfly in the classroom’ on using mayflies in freshwater citizen science and education projects. Esteemed angler and naturalist Malcolm Greenhalgh contributed a fascinating article on the close relationship between mayflies and fly fisherman.
Szabolcs Lengyel – Assistant Professor of Ecology, University of Debrecen, Hungary – took inspiration from the art world to suggest a novel solution – wrapping bridges – for an unusual ecological problem for mayflies. And finally, we like the film on mayfly lifecycles embedded at the top, by FishOnProductions.
Hopefully you’ll be able to get out and about this month to see a mayfly hatch, and witness this wonderful natural spectacle for yourself.
A wind farm beside a lake: a common sight in a future ‘consensus world’ scenario for Europe’s freshwaters? Image: Conor Dupre Neary | Creative Commons
What benefits do freshwater ecosystems provide to humans, and how might they alter in Europe in coming decades? These are key questions that underpin how freshwater science, management and policy is done in Europe, both now and in the future.
The MARS project has recently released a set of short and easily-digestible factsheets, which summarise the ‘start of the art’ knowledge on freshwater ecosystem services, and provide a range of ‘horizon scanning‘ potential scenarios for freshwater management, policy and ecology in the future.
A constructed reed bed lagoon, built to boost regulating and maintaining services such as water filtration. Image: Paul Glendell, Natural England
Freshwater ecosystem services
Ecosystem services describe the benefits that people obtain from ecosystems. They outline the direct and indirect contributions that ecosystems make to human well-being. Ecosystem services are directly linked to the under-lying ecosystem functions, processes and structures that generate them.
Ecosystem services help make visible the vital roles that ecosystems play in supporting human lives. By clearly linking ecological and socioeconomic systems, the ecosystem service concept is intended to foster enhanced appreciation and protection of global ecosystems. However, there is still uncertainty about how ecosystem services are related to ecosystem structure, functioning, habitat type, size and condition.
A fly fisherman. Recreational angling is an important cultural service. Image: Jenkinson2455 Flickr | Creative Commons
The MARS project is investigating how multiple stresses (e.g. pollution, over-abstraction) affect the ecosystem services that Europe’s freshwaters can provide. Understanding these relationships is crucial in helping communicate and legitimate why freshwaters are important and should be conserved, both to policy makers and the general public.
The ecosystem service factsheets are split into three categories:
Provisioning services encompass all the outputs of materials, nutrients and energy from an ecosystem. These might include food and water supplies, raw materials for construction and fuel, genetic resources, medicinal resources and ornamental resources.
Regulating and maintaining services support ecosystem functioning and productivity. Regulating and maintaining services describe the ways in which living organisms can mediate or moderate their environments in ways that benefit human well-being.
Cultural ecosystem services are the non-material benefits that people obtain from ecosystems through recreation, tourism, intellectual development, spiritual enrichment, reflection and creative and aesthetic experiences.
Each factsheet gives examples of different services provided by freshwaters, and outlines the policy and management challenges for valuing and addressing them.
An irrigated field. Water for irrigation is a widely-used provisioning service. Image: Bard Smith | Creative Commons
Three scenarios for the future of European freshwaters
The future is uncertain. Depending on both human actions and the scale of climatic changes, we can expect any number of potential changes in freshwater ecosystems between now and 2060. In response to this uncertainty, MARS scientists and stakeholders have collaboratively developed a range of different scenarios, each based on climate and socioeconomic predictions.
Using these scenarios, three ‘storylines’ were written to explore the potential future impacts of multiple stressors on the ecosystems and basin regions studied by MARS. Two time horizons are used for scenarios: 2030 (to inform the update of the Water Framework Directive in 2027) and 2060 (to show the impacts of climate change). This scenario methodology has been used by many organisations to present unpredictable futures, including UNEP and the IPCC.
Traditionally, these scenarios have been simple, linear predictions, with sequential and predictable relationships between socio-economic actions and climatic and environmental outcomes. In recent years, however, scientists have pointed out that the interactions between humans and the environment are more complex than such a sequential approach gives credit for, and a more responsive methodology is used here, in which emissions and socio-economic scenarios are developed in parallel.
The Tysso Hydroelectric Plant in Norway. Similar constructions might underpin a techno world scenario. Image: Dag Endre Opedal | Creative Commons
Analytical priority is given to changes in emissions and greenhouse gas concentrations over time (termed ‘Representative Concentration Pathways’). Scenarios can then be created based on these emission pathways alongside parallel (and plausible) ‘Socio-Economic Pathways’ and policy scenarios.
As water management is usually site-specific, global data and predictions currently tells us little about water management in the future. Projections and data do tell us, however, about aggregate global demand and availability.
The storylines designed by MARS scientists use this data and create further predictions around potential changes such as technologies for irrigation, changes in river discharges, changes in pesticide use (and thus pollution), technologies like dikes and dams, water use in industry and energy production, and use of surface and groundwater.
Manure spreading on a dusty field. Intensive agriculture is a key characteristic of the fragmented world scenario. Image: werktuigendagen | Creative Commons
MARS uses three scenarios to predict how European freshwater policy and management might develop in coming decades, and how this could affect the health and diversity of freshwater ecosystems.
In the Fragmented World, we envision a future with rising emissions and significant climatic change (Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5). Technological developments are slow, and fossil fuel dependence is high; international cooperation is poor and significant pockets of poverty persist (Shared Socio-Economic Pathway 3).
The Consensus World storyline is based on a scenario where future development follows similar patterns to the recent past: the economy grows well in some countries and poorly in others, and inequality between rich and poor countries continues. Despite this disparity, the world tends towards being relatively politically stable (Shared Socio-Economic Pathway 2). This occurs alongside a stablising and relatively low level of climatic change (Representative Concentration Pathway 4.5).
The Techno World storyline is based on a scenario of high greenhouse gas emissions and rising global temperatures (Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5) in combination with a strong, carbon-based global economy in which many currently pressing social concerns, such as inequality and population growth, have been ameliorated (Shared Socio-Economic Pathway 5).
***
Read all the MARS Factsheets here
***
Scenarios links:
Shared Socio-Economic Pathways
Representative Concentration Pathways
Ecosystem service links:
Freshwater Ecosystem Services (2005), Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, Chapter 7
Loch Leven. Image: Laurence Carvalho
A major challenge for freshwater scientists and managers is linking the health of an ecosystem (measured as ecological status in the Water Framework Directive) and the services that it provides. An underlying question here is: does a healthy ecosystem necessarily provide more ecosystem services?
A new online tool developed by Laurence Carvalho and colleagues in the EU OpenNESS project tracks how the quality of the brown trout fishery in Loch Leven in Scotland responded to changes in habitat quality between 1972-2014.
Using a mixture of historical data and expert judgements, the tool allows users – including fishermen and fishery managers – to model how the loch’s habitat and fishery might develop until 2027 (when the WFD is due to be revised).
The tool uses a mathematical system known as Dynamic Bayesian Network, where different variables can be related to each other over time. The loch’s habitat quality can be altered over time using a set of interactive sliders, causing the model to suggest how fishery catches and reputation are likely to change in response.
Whilst this tool has been developed only for Loch Leven, it shows the potential of this approach for bringing together complex historical ecological data in an accessible format to forecast future changes.
More specifically, it provides a useful tool for freshwater managers looking for ways to justify and communicate the value of conservation and restoration to the people who use and enjoy rivers and lakes.
Multiple Pressures in River Basin Management
Workshop organiser Rafaela Schinegger. Image: Jörg Strackbein
Last week in Vienna, a group of around 60 river basin managers, Water Framework Directive officials, European Environment Agency representatives, external experts and MARS aquatic scientists met to discuss the key challenges for freshwater management and policy across Europe.
Central to the two days of discussions was the challenge of multiple pressures: the often unpredictable interactions between individual pressures on freshwaters, such as pollution, floods, droughts and river bank alterations. Despite growing awareness of the importance of multiple pressures, their joint impacts on aquatic ecosystems are not well understood, and as a result they are poorly reflected in existing River Basin Management Plans – the framework through which the Water Framework Directive is implemented in Europe.
There was rich science-management dialogue at the meeting, titled ‘Multiple Pressures in River Basin Management‘, which took place at the Austrian Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management – a MARS partner. The MARS project is just past its halfway point, and the meeting gave the opportunity for water managers and policy makers to help shape the project’s research and outputs to ensure they are relevant and useful in practice.
Attendees discussed how the impacts of multiple pressures might be assessed and mitigated in River Basin Management, and worked together to scope possible management tools which use scientific data to aid decision making. These cross-disciplinary dialogues were timed to help inform the implementation of mitigation and restoration measures in the current cycle of the Water Framework Directive across Europe, as well as the planning of the next cycle starting in 2021. The outputs from the meeting will form the basis of a guidance document written by MARS scientists for river managers seeking to mitigate the effects of multiple pressures.
On the first morning, delegates heard from a number of water managers and policy makers. Speaking via video-link from Brussels, Jorge Romero Rodriguez of DG Environment outlined the key challenge for freshwater management in Europe. He outlined the tension between use and conservation of water resources, and the need for management measures that help freshwaters reach the “good status” target in the WFD. Rodriguez put forward the DPSIR framework as a tool for assessing and managing the health of freshwater ecosystems under multiple pressures.
Image: Jörg Strackbein
Veronika Koller-Kreimel of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management (BMLFUW) and Raimund Mair of the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River (ICPDR) each gave insights about the challenges of multiple pressures in their river basins.
Koller-Kreimel outlined that hydromorphological pressures – particularly hydropower constructions – are the main cause of falling ecological status in Austrian rivers. Mair discussed how the Danube basin is extremely variable in terms of pressures and management, with nutrient pollution and flow fragmentation affecting much of the catchment, and the need for cross-boundary co-ordination of management initiatives. In the Danube basin, the key pressures are monitored under a framework, which focuses on ‘Significant Water Management Issues’ according to the Water Framework Directive.
Next, key members of the MARS project spoke to attendees about their ongoing aquatic scientific research. Project leader Daniel Hering stated that in the 1970s and 80s, the identification of a single, strong pressure – organic pollution – allowed for water managers to gain wide public and political support to restore freshwaters by improving sanitation.
However, in the present day, we face a complex mix of pressures, with uncertainty over their interactions and impacts – making it more difficult to communicate the need for appropriate measures. In fact, there are many pressure combinations where we don’t fully understand their interactions, nor the trajectories of ecological recovery from their impacts following restoration.
Hering emphasised that there are missing links between assessing multiple pressures and managing them through policy measures such as the Water Framework Directive. Relatedly, Hering identified the need for better linkages between monitoring biological quality elements in an ecosystem, and quantifying the ecosystem services it provides, suggesting that, “people are more often interested in the ecosystem services provided by freshwater rather than in a single stonefly species that the river can support.”
Daniel Hering on ‘the good new times, the bad new times’ for European freshwaters. Image: Jörg Strackbein
Laurence Carvalho outlined the four most common pressure combinations in European lakes, all of which were interactions involving nutrient stress: with extreme temperatures; extreme rainfall or drought; flooding; and changes to lake morphology. Carvalho suggested that a key element of conceptual models seeking to understand the ecological dynamics of stressed lakes was to make sure that we can understand individual waterbodies, as well as river basin dynamics and overall European stressor patterns.
Stefan Schmutz emphasised how MARS is designed to help develop mitigation strategies and decision support tools for multiple pressures in European freshwaters, and that it is important to consider not only pressure combinations, but also impact combinations – in other words the effects of multiple pressures. He demonstrated a user-friendly tool showing how two individual pressures could affect the ecological status of fish in a river, and the importance of threshold responses to small changes in pressure.
Christian Feld began his short talk with the provocative comment “European water bodies are not well.” Feld outlined the potential for an online ‘web doctor’ for water body management, where river basin managers could input data on multiple pressures and be given guidance on the potential effectiveness of different management approaches in mitigating their effects.
Questions from the floor. Image: Jörg Strackbein
After this set of talks, questions were posed to MARS scientists from the floor. A key theme that emerged was the need for clear and accessible tools, which link monitoring data on multiple pressures to ecological status, and give managers an indication of the potential success of different measures.
An important consideration here is how the complexity and uncertainty of our current understanding on multiple pressures can translate into straightforward management and policy advice. Accordingly, this was noted as a key consideration for the next two years of MARS research on impacts of multiple pressures: not only understanding the underlying science, but shaping research outputs in ways that are policy and management relevant.
World Cafe discussions. Image: Jörg Strackbein
After lunch, the participants were split into four groups in which to undertake World Cafe discussions. The World Cafe format is a way of facilitating dialogue within large groups. Each small group discussed how the key themes of the workshop – the challenges of addressing multiple pressures in River Basin Management planning; the future needs and solutions for more effective planning and management – related to their own work across Europe.
The following morning, the groups reported back with a range of grounded (and sometimes provocative) insights towards a set of guiding principles for multiple pressure management. These were then built upon in a panel discussion including Peter Kristensen of the European Environment Agency, Anne Lyche Solheim of MARS and the Norwegian Institute for Water Research, Stephan von Keitz of the Hessian Ministry of Environment, Germany and Veronika Koller-Kreimel from the Austrian ministry.
Panel discussions. Image: Jörg Strackbein
A number of key themes from the workshop emerged in these discussions. First, that river basin managers are used to dealing with many pressures, but not always the combined effects of multiple pressures. The challenge here is for scientific research to suggest solutions to managers faced with complex pressure interactions in a world with a changing climate, as well as increasing demands for food, energy and massive urbanisation. How can water be protected given these massive global changes?
Second, as previously stated, there is a need for management tools which link pressures, status, measures and services, and allow for information on the benefits of management to reach the highest political levels. As Veronika Koller-Kreimel put it “such tools need to be as simple as possible, but as complex as necessary”.
Third, many river basin managers advocated that such tools should function at appropriate scales: in particular, for individual water bodies. Whilst ongoing MARS models of multiple pressures across river basins and the European continent are extremely useful for identifying large-scale trends and patterns, managers need small-scale diagnostic and monitoring tools to aid their multiple pressure mitigation. Fourth, there was general agreement that biological pressures (such as invasive species) should be given more attention within MARS research.
Science-management dialogue. Image: Jörg Strackbein
Fifth, there is the need for better co-operation and sharing of knowledge about multiple pressures and ecological status, for example using already existing data generated by previous European Union projects. As Stefan Schmutz suggested, “we know a lot about freshwater ecosystems, but not one of us has the full knowledge.” A key challenge here is to present information on managing multiple pressures in a digestible way to better integrate their management into River Basin Management Plans within the Water Framework Directive.
Sixth, and related, an important recurring discussion centered on the question: “what is good ecological status?” In short, if we’re looking to communicate the need for freshwater management towards good ecological status to policy makers and the public, we need to be able to explain what it looks like and why it is important. Many people accept a ‘shifting baseline’ of ecological health, the acceptable level of which can drop from generation to generation. It was generally agreed that better communication of ‘good ecological status’ could help frame and legitimate freshwater management measures to wider audiences and sectors responsible for the pressures (e.g. agriculture, hydropower, urbanisation).
Seventh, another related theme that emerged from the discussions was the need for case studies where multiple pressures management had provided clear, positive impacts on ecological health and status. Such good practice examples have the potential not only to guide management, but to help communicate the importance of why it is important.
Meeting attendees. Image: Jörg Strackbein
In summing up, workshop moderator Jan Sendzimir provided an important insight to tie many of the discussions together. He noted that ecological systems often ‘get better’ slower than the rate of change in political cycles. To make real improvements to stressed freshwater ecosystems, we need long-term political co-operation across governments and better dialogue with the sectors responsible for the pressures.
Whilst this meeting was rich with discussions on improving the health and status of Europe’s freshwaters, there is still much work to be done.
The UK Lakes Portal
Wastwater in the English Lake District. Image: Richard Walker | Flickr Creative Commons
Scientific data on over 40,000 UK lakes has been recently brought together into one open-access online portal. The UK Lakes Portal is the result of over 10 years work coordinated by the Centre for Hydrology & Ecology, and provides a comprehensive overview of the geography and ecology of UK lakes.
The portal contains physical, environmental, and water chemistry data compiled from an extensive set of sources over many years and is integrated with the National Biodiversity Network hub for biodiversity data. In addition, new data is constantly being added by citizen scientists using iRecord.
The portal gives information on geography of each lake (depth, surface area, location, altitude) which is linked to data on its biodiversity and information on the wider catchment that feeds it. The biodiversity data is part of a comprehensive new freshwater species list for the UK, which also includes information on non-native species.
In linking each lake to its wider catchment, the portal provides a valuable tool for scientists and policy makers advancing landscape approaches to freshwater research and management. In addition, by presenting the information in a clear and engaging form, the portal is likely to be of use to anyone interested in freshwaters: a comprehensive and interactive ‘wiki’ for UK lakes, if you like.
Professor Rosie Hails, Director of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Science at the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, said:
“The UK Lakes Portal is a product of excellent collaboration between the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, University College London and the UK conservation and environment agencies. This is one of many natural capital portals that we hope to develop in the future as an evidence base to support policy and decision making.”
Laurence Carvalho, Freshwater Ecologist at the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (and a member of the MARS project) said:
“The UK Lakes Portal is a fantastic new resource for both scientists and the local citizen scientist interested in finding out more about their local lake and the biodiversity found within it. It has the potential to help us value the benefits we gain from UK lakes and answer questions such as how well connected is biodiversity across UK Lakes and how fast are invasive species spreading across UK freshwaters?”
Dipper from the Water of Leith
Dipper on the Water of Leith, Edinburgh. Image: Kris Kubik
The Water of Leith valley runs like a thread of blue and green from the Pentland Hills outside Edinburgh and through the city to the sea at Leith. It is a corridor of urban biodiversity: a place where brown trout, kingfishers and otters live within just a mile or two of the crowds and traffic of Princes Street.
One of the Water of Leith’s most charismatic residents is the dipper. This small brown and white bird – known for its ability to ‘dip’ and swim underwater – relies on fast-flowing and unpolluted rivers. Their presence on the Water of Leith is testament to years of conservation and restoration activity on the river following decades of industrial pollution.
Kris filming in the field.
The Water of Leith’s dippers have also caught the eye of an Edinburgh filmmaker and become the stars of a new BAFTA nominated film on the river. Kris Kubik, a film and TV student at Edinburgh University tracked dippers along the river over a number of months to capture stunning documents of their ecology and behaviour. Kris even built a hide at the waterside in order to film dippers in their natural habitats, and his film ‘Dipper from the Water of Leith‘ is currently being shown at film festivals ahead of a wider release.
We spoke to Kris to find out more about tracking and filming dippers along this diverse urban river.
Tell us about the background and inspiration for the film: why the Water of Leith, and why the dipper?
The idea to create a short film about the dipper appeared quite long time ago. When a few years ago I came to Edinburgh from Poland, the first thing I noticed in the city – and more generally in Scotland – were the large populations of dippers.
For me, it was something both amazing and really unique. In my country, this bird is not common and can be found only in some parts of the Tatra mountains, the Sudeten and Beskidy mountains. And then it occurred to me that someday I would like to be able to make a film with the dipper in the lead role.
How did you go about researching the dipper, its ecology and behaviour? And did this research influence how you approached shooting the film?
The dipper caught my attention, mainly because of the niche in which this unique and complex species live. Over the years, I recorded some facts about this bird. But it was general knowledge, so I felt that I need to explore its ecology in more depth. So I had to find researchers who studied the species for years. In this way I contacted, among others, ecologists Steve Ormerod and Peter Mawby.
The first step for research was to gather as much information in understanding the dipper’s behaviour and its habitat. The second step, importantly for me, was to try to look closer at my protagonist by spending all my spare time in the same habitat as the dipper: spending hours observing their lives and habits. Over the course of many months of research, I realised that I could film the dipper in a way that could tell a story.
Dipper from the Water of Leith uses underwater cameras to give a ‘dipper’s eye view of the river’ Image: Kris Kubik
The film is beautiful, and features a range of perspectives on/around/from the dipper. Tell us about the filming process and how you immersed yourself (quite literally) in the dipper’s world. What were some of the logistical challenges of shooting in the bird’s land (and water) scape?
It may sound quite humorous, but the main challenge for shooting footage of the dipper, wasn’t any wild animal or even the weather, but much simpler: avoiding walkers! It turned out that much of the land where I wanted to film and research the dipper was often busy with people and dogs.
I think that’s the nature of The Water of Leith: people love to walk there. And that’s fine, up to the point where you start to observe species through the lenses, and on a busy river, is impossible to reach dippers.
Therefore, it was important to find a location that would be well away from people. Fortunately, I managed to find a place near Edinburgh where I built a hide, so that I could blend in with nature, sit all day and not to be disturbed by anyone.
Dippers aren’t the only bird species on the Water of Leith… Image: Kris Kubik
Did making the film give you any new perspectives on the Water of Leith and its inhabitants? If so, how?
Making of film about nature gave me an amazing opportunity to dive into the world of wildlife. When you starting working on a project you have some rough idea and some basic knowledge about the whole subject. When you go deeper and deeper, beyond and above all of the surfaces,you start to see more details of the bird and its habitat.
It’s similar to the experience of seeing the bird in the distance: you know it’s shape and plumage. But when you start drawing the bird, you focusing on more details, and you discover a new dimension of the individual you are studying. It’s quite similar but obviously it’s not the same.
After many months spent in the wild under difficult weather conditions, you become a part of the landscape. You not only see the trees, you see a moss on them, single leaves, shapes, shadows, reflections, the way they are absorbing light and many other things. When you see the river, you don’t see just running water with rocks. You are see the river bed life, fishes, insects. Your senses become sharper. Your vision is more profound, and at some point you begin to identify yourself within nature.
A heron in the river margins. Image: Kris Kubik
The film has already been nominated for a Scottish BAFTA New Talent award – congratulations – will it be shown anywhere and will we be able to see it online?
Thank you so much, I’m so pleased by this nomination, this really means a lot to me. In my view, camera work is a really crucial part of wildlife filmmaking and it requires a lot of hard work and development.
At the moment, Dipper from the Water of Leith is showing in festival circles so for now, it isn’t available in full online (but see the trailer above). This project is really important for me, and my goal is to create a further length monograph film about the dipper.
Based on my short film, I will try to raise funds to create a more accomplished story about this species. I’m researching new locations, developing my camera skills and collaborating with some researchers. I finished a shot-list and most of the location hunting, and I’m in the process of filling up all the necessary documentation.
I will be honest with you, I can’t wait to get back to filming the dipper again: telling and sharing stories about the beauty of this unique species.
A ruffled dipper. Image: Kris Kubik
Lake Poopó, Bolivia with water in 2013 (left) and dry in 2016 (right). Image: Jesse Allen/NASA
Lakes across the world are drying up, largely due to water abstraction, according to new research.
Bolivia’s second largest lake, Lake Poopó has recently dried out to become a 2,700 km2 salt pan. This dramatic loss of an important freshwater ecosystem is due to a combination of silting and water abstraction in the Desaguadero River, which feeds Poopó, and ongoing climate change (temperature have risen 0.7 degrees in the Andes over the last 70 years).
A recent article in the New Scientist brings together evidence from across the world to suggest that Poopó’s vanishing act is not an outlier event. Instead, new research suggests that lakes across the world are shrinking or disappearing – particularly in arid regions – with significant effects on the biodiversity and human populations that they support.
Research by MARS scientist Meryem Beklioğlu from the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey indicates that lakes on the Central Anatolian Plateau shrunk in size by around half between 2003 and 2010. One Turkish lake, Lake Akşehir, has completely dried up, resulting in the extinction of the Central Anatolian Bleak. Two other endemic fish species, the Eber Gudgeon and a local dace (Leuciscus anatolicus) are now critically endangered.
Many of Turkey’s lakes are shallow, which makes them vulnerable to increasing water abstraction for drinking and irrigation to meet the needs of growing populations in a warming climate. As lakes shrink, their salt levels rise and they become vulnerable to nutrient pollution and eutrophication, placing great stress onto freshwater biodiversity.
Beklioğlu uses computer models to predict how Turkish lakes will fare in the future, and suggests that at current rates of water abstraction, one of the largest lakes in the region, Lake Beysehir, will be completely dry by 2040.
Speaking to the New Scientist, she said “This water is critical for irrigation and for the local economy, but right now we are cutting off the branch we are sitting on.” To address these problems, Beklioğlu highlights the pressing need for sustainable approaches to water management in the region.
MARS scientists studying multiple stressors in Lake Beyeshir, Turkey. Image: METU Limnology Laboratory
MARS scientist Erik Jeppesen from Aarhus University in Denmark suggests that shrinking lakes across southern Europe, the Middle East and central Asia are the result of climate change and growing demand for water.
Speaking to the New Scientist, he said “This region is experiencing a drier climate now, which is also driving increased water extraction. Ultimately, the drying of the lakes along with the loss of groundwater and salinisation, will make the land less viable for agriculture in this region. This will put significant pressure on northern countries to produce more food, leading to deteriorating water quality in northern lakes due to increased fertiliser run-off entering lakes.”
Freshwater life under the microscope
Is there life in a drop of water? Using microscopes, freshwater scientists can help us see the often curious and beautiful array of microscopic life that lives – largely unnoticed – in almost every drop of water on Earth.
MARS scientists Steve Thackeray from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology has created a new film collecting microscopic footage of the organisms collected in sampling in lakes across the North of England.
The film ‘Freshwater Wildlife Under the Microscope‘ reveals an array of organisms with fascinating forms and patterns. Short descriptions for each organism allow us to get to grips with the important roles they play in our freshwater ecosystems.
Accompanied by a minimal, ambient soundtrack, the film is an excellent introduction to the curious freshwater organisms that support our rivers and lakes, but are usually invisible to the naked eye.
The Freshwater Blog 