Meet the MARS Team: Laurence Carvalho
A swan taking off from Loch Leven, Scotland. Image: L Carvalho.
This week we continue our ‘Meet the Team‘ series with an interview with MARS researcher Laurence Carvalho.
Laurence is a freshwater ecologist at the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology in Edinburgh, Scotland. He is particularly known for his work on the impacts of eutrophication and climate change on lakes.
He has previously worked on European Commission projects such as WISER, REBECCA and Eurolimpacs, and helped develop a phytoplankton classification tool for UK lakes for the Water Framework Directive.
1. What is the focus of your work for MARS?
I am leading the “synthesis” Work Package in MARS, which aims to synthesise the results from experiments, observations and modelling carried out in the project.
The aim is to compare how stressors interact across different spatial scales from individual water bodies, across river basins and all the way up to the European scale. The work also aims to use this synthesis to identify diagnostic indicators and deliver recommendations for improved Integrated River Basin Management across Europe.
More personally, I hope to contribute to work examining the response of lake algal blooms to the combined effects of nutrients and extreme climatic events. I plan to look at this using a long-term dataset from Loch Leven in Scotland and a large-scale dataset from lakes across Europe.
Loch Leven, Scotland. Image: L Carvalho
2. Why is your work important?
Freshwaters provide society with so many benefits, not just water for drinking and agriculture. Many of these benefits, such as fishing, recreation and tourism, rely on diverse, healthy ecosystems and good water quality.
It is important that we better understand the linkages between ecosystem health and human health and well-being, as this should ensure greater public and political support to manage this resource more sustainably in the future.
In addition to these benefits to humans, the intrinsic value of freshwaters in supporting a rich biodiversity – whether that is birds, fish or frogs – is also fundamentally important.
The amazing world of algae: the cyanobacteria that gave our planet oxygen. Image: L Carvalho.
3. What are the key challenges for freshwater management in Europe?
Better management of floods and droughts given increasing climate extremes is probably the key challenge. Ideally finding more nature-based solutions to these challenges, such as working with society to create more naturally functioning floodplains, rather looking at the river or the lake as the problem.
As well as floods and droughts, given that a high proportion of freshwaters in Europe that are in less than good status and there is an ongoing loss of freshwater biodiversity, another key challenge is working out what so-called “sustainable exploitation” really looks like and putting in place better integrated policies and management to achieve it.
If done carefully, incorporating concepts of “ecosystem services” into policy and management should help with this.
Working at the European Commission at Ispra, Italy also allowed for frequent “sampling” trips to Lago Maggiore… Image: L Carvalho
4. Tell us about a memorable experience in your career.
Surveying rare aquatic plants in the amazing watery landscape of North Uist off the west coast of Scotland is right up there for breath-taking scenery and life’s simple pleasures. It matches lake coring in the deserts of Inner Mongolia, working for a year at the European Commission in Italy and playing water polo in Lake Balaton with friends and colleagues at the Shallow Lakes meeting in Hungary.
Water Polo in Lake Balaton, Hungary at the Shallow Lakes conference 2002. Image: L Carvalho.
In fact every Shallow Lakes conference is inspiring in terms of work and play, so I can predict my next memorable experience will be at their next meeting in Turkey this October!
5. What inspired you to become a scientist?
Probably a local priest who dismissed the theory of evolution! This was about the same time as David Attenborough’s fantastic BBC television series “Life on Earth” which described the rich evidence behind this wonderful process in all its glory.
A day off work in Italy well spent! Image: L Carvalho.
6. What are your plans and ambitions for your future scientific work?
There’s still lots to learn about algae and other microbes – their fundamental role in providing us with clean water and a stable atmosphere offers plenty for the future! But I am very keen to work more with people outside my discipline, with social scientists and environmental economists, to really deliver a greater understanding of the value of restoring the health of our freshwaters.
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You can read more about Laurence’s work at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology website, and follow him on Twitter @LacLaurence.
River Ribble, Lancashire. Image: RSJ
Worldwide efforts to conserve river ecosystems are failing, and new approaches for stronger conservation planning are required. This is the underlying context of a new editorial ‘Rebalancing the philosophy of river conservation’ by Mars scientist Steve Ormerod in Aquatic Conservation Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems. Ormerod suggests that the ecosystem service approach can offer a valuable addition to current river conservation strategies, potentially providing convincing new arguments to help halt freshwater biodiversity loss.
Growing human populations are putting increasing pressure on freshwater ecosystems globally: altering and fragmenting river flows; abstracting water for agriculture, sanitation and drinking; and releasing unprecedented amounts of pollutants into freshwaters. As David Strayer and David Dudgeon outlined in a 2010 paper, despite freshwater ecosystems occupying less than 1% of the Earth’s surface, they support around 10% of all known global species.
As well as being hotspots for biodiversity, freshwaters are often focal points for human development, the negative effects of which – pollution, overfishing, flow fragmentation – mean that freshwater species are more threatened than those in marine or land environments. Many key threats to freshwater ecosystems are generated at the river catchment scale, where the interactions (and potential intensifications) of ecological stresses caused by pollutants from agricultural and urban development are not fully understood (as Ormerod previously wrote in 2010).
Industrial River Ribble, Lancashire. Image: Blog Preston
However, the picture isn’t necessarily bleak. In this new editorial, Ormerod argues that the ecosystem services approach to managing nature – where the benefits provided by an ecosystem are valued in explicitly human terms rather than on an ethical basis – has the potential to strengthen and reinvigorate river conservation management.
The basis of the ecosystem service argument is that well-functioning ecosystems are fundamental to human livelihoods. However, many ecosystem services – food and fuel production, flood regulation and water supply to name a few – are undervalued, or regarded as ‘public goods’, by the models that structure global economic development.
In this context, ecosystem services are framed by some conservationists as a powerful means of convincing people, institutions and governments of the value of the natural world under the logic of economic and social self-interest. In other words, I might be motivated to conserve nature, not necessarily because of any ethical arguments, but because of the benefits nature provides to me and my livelihood. As a result, the approach has gained traction to become one of the dominant themes of conservation policy in recent years.
Ormerod suggests that this ‘enlightened self-interest’ is likely to provide a stronger basis for both citizens and policy makers to become more motivated to conserve rivers. This approach may have the potential to provide common ground for individuals and institutions across catchments and river basins to collaborate in planning conservation, a particularly valuable asset given the numerous competing concerns of stakeholders along a river’s course.
Ormerod’s argument is that the ecosystem service approach can sit as an addition to existing river conservation approaches – broadly described as ‘protect the best, restore the rest‘ – where healthy, diverse ecosystems are conserved, and those that are polluted or degraded are restored as far as possible. This existing approach is ingrained in European policies such as the Habitats Directive and Water Framework Directive.
New approaches to conservation policy? Image: Europa JRC
Water supply from river ecosystems is undoubtedly one of most indispensable ecosystem services. Given that rivers are hotspots for biodiversity, human development and ecosystem services, if the ecosystem service approach has the potential to strengthen conservation planning anywhere, then river ecosystems seem a likely candidate for success.
According to a 2011 paper Ormerod co-authored with Edward Maltby for the UK National Ecosystem Assessment (link opens as zipped download), evidence is emerging from rivers and their catchments that conservation priorities based on biodiversity conservation and ecosystem service provision may not be mutually exclusive.
In other words, the ecosystem service approach may help strengthen conservation efforts by providing convincing arguments for a range of users, land owners and policy makers to make decisions which not only serve their social and economic self-interest, but also help avert biodiversity loss.
Ormerod’s point is that the approach has been under-applied to freshwater conservation, and given the wide range of important ecosystem services that rivers provide, may well help provide new and convincing arguments for their conservation. New tools in a toolkit of strategies to help halt biodiversity loss.
Zebra mussels. Image: Wikipedia
However, there are numerous considerations to be addressed. The ecosystem service approach to conserving nature has drawn criticism on both practical and philosophical grounds. It is argued that the approach supports the conservation of those species that provide notable and financial benefits to humans and ignores those that do not. As Kent Redford and Bill Adams pointed out in a 2009 Conservation Biology editorial, zebra mussels are far better at filtering pollutants out of water than any ‘native’ UK species – should we therefore prioritise their (non-native, invasive) populations for the ecosystem services they provide?
Similarly, if we value nature only for its potential utilitarian worth, are we not missing the reasons – ethics, curiosity, beauty, wonder – why most people are motivated to care about and conserve the natural world? Can species and ecosystems really be reduced and appropriately catalogued into commodities? Can they be accurately mapped, and what about the effects of geographical scale on their provision? Does their provision benefit everyone across society, or are there those who remain marginalised? How will planning for ecosystem services be affected by climate change?
These are debates to continue more fully in another post. For now, we’d be interested to hear your thoughts, comments and feedback on Steve’s paper.
Fundamentally, there are (at least) two major questions arising from the paper. First, how can the ecosystem service approach help strengthen freshwater conservation? Second, can the priorities of ecosystem service based approaches to river conservation be integrated and ‘rebalanced’ with existing biodiversity-orientated approaches? If so, how?
Is there life on MARS?
Yellowknife Bay in the Gale Crater on Mars, where evidence of an ancient freshwater lake has been found. Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
Is there life on Mars?
This line from a David Bowie song has become a recurring pun as new MARS project (‘Managing Aquatic ecosystems and water Resources under multiple Stress’) takes shape. Recent findings from NASA’s Curiosity Rover mission to Mars have suggested that a large freshwater lake, potentially capable of supporting life, existed on the planet around 3.5 billion years ago – around the time that life began to emerge on Earth. So, as the MARS project works on Earth’s freshwaters, the Curiosity Rover is uncovering evidence of freshwater on Mars.
A special issue of Science published in January 2014 describes how the Curiosity Rover drilled two mudstone sediments in the 96 mile wide Gale Crater where it landed in August 2012 (you can follow the Rover using the New York Times’ tracker). In September 2012, Curiosity found remnants of a gravel streambed and alluvial fan at the northern end of the crater – evidence of flowing water, again around 3.5 billion years ago.
Alluvial fan in the Gale Crater – a sign of ancient flowing water. Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
The mudstone samples, taken at a location in the crater with unusually light-coloured and fine sedimentary rocks named Yellowknife Bay, contained smectite clay minerals with a chemical composition indicating they formed underwater. The presence of these clay minerals suggests that there was a calm body of water present in the crater around 3.5 billion years ago, which could have persisted for hundreds of thousands of years. The small clay particles would have sunk into sediment at the bottom of the lake and been compressed and cemented into rock over time.
Analysis of the rock also found chemical elements which were key to the formation of life on Earth – including carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, sulphur, nitrogen and phosphorous – and evidence the freshwater was likely to have a low salinity and neutral pH. As Dr. John Grotzinger, project scientist on the Curiosity mission from California Institute of Technology said in a New York Times interview, “The whole thing just seems extremely Earthlike”.
Curiosity Rover at Gale Crater. Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
Does this mean that Mars may have supported freshwater life, billions of years ago? As Professor Sanjeev Gupta, a member of NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory from Imperial College London states, there’s still much work to be done in finding definite signs of life:
“It is important to note that we have not found signs of ancient life on Mars. What we have found is that Gale Crater was able to sustain a lake on its surface at least once in its ancient past that may have been favourable for microbial life, billions of years ago. This is a huge positive step for the exploration of Mars. It is exciting to think that billions of years ago, ancient microbial life may have existed in the lake’s calm waters, converting a rich array of elements into energy. The next phase of the mission, where we will be exploring more rocky outcrops on the crater’s surface, could hold the key whether life did exist on the red planet.”
As on Earth, such long-term environmental records indicate the climatic and ecological conditions and stresses that would have shaped any freshwater life, in this case pointing towards a wetter, warmer climate on Mars around 3.5 billion years ago. Researchers from the Mars Science Laboratory suggest that the conditions would have been ideal for simple microbial life such as chemolithoautotrophs to thrive in. These simple organisms are found on Earth in caves, hydrothermal vents and deep groundwater, and gain energy from compounds produced in geological weathering (‘lithos’ (rock) and ‘troph’ (consumer) can be read as ‘rock-eaters’).
Artists impression of the Curiosity Rover. Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems
However, in his introduction to the Science issue, Dr Grotzinger points out that finding evidence of such ancient microbial life on Earth was a formidable challenge, proven through the discovery of microfossils preserved in silica 100 years after Darwin’s theory of evolution. A key task now for the mission is to find rocks and sediment where organic material from the ancient microbes may have been preserved.
If this preserved material is found, it will not only provide proof that life once existed on Mars, but it is also likely to yield insights for understanding how life developed in response to environmental stresses on Earth. We’ll keep an eye on Curiosity’s exploration of these ancient, high-stress Martian freshwater environments as research continues.
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Give the gift of Smithsonian magazine for only $12! http://bit.ly/1cGUiGv
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Beavers, ecological stress and river restoration
In February 2014 a family of wild beavers were photographed on the River Otter in Devon, South West England by a retired ecologist. The animals are believed to be the first evidence of populations living and breeding outside captivity in England for over 400 years.
Their (re)discovery prompts a number of questions for the form and function of British freshwaters. What impact will the beavers return have on freshwater ecosystems and human livelihoods? What reference conditions do we use to monitor and assess restoration and reintroductions?
How can the new ecological stresses and processes caused by beavers be managed in such environmental restoration, if at all? These questions are central to the MARS project’s wider research on stress and environmental restoration.
The Eurasian beaver in the UK
The Eurasian beaver (Castor fiber) was once common across Britain, a fundamental link in many freshwater ecosystems. Populations were hunted to extinction in the 16th century for pelt, meat and the medicinal properties of a secretion ‘castoreum’, used to variously treat headaches, fever and ‘hysteria’.
Under the European Union’s Habitat Directive, governments are required to consider the reintroduction of extinct native species such as the beaver (although the concept of what we term ‘native’ often proves tricky to tie down). As a result, there is increased debate in Britain over whether beavers should be reintroduced, perhaps most prominently shown by the experimental Scottish Beaver Trial at Knapdale, South West Scotland.
Keystone species and ecosystem engineers
Beavers are termed ‘keystone species’ by ecologists because their presence is likely to significantly affect the form and function of the ecosystems in which they live. By damming rivers, beavers are ‘ecosystem engineers’, holding back silt (which can increase water quality), creating large, slow pools in rivers and wetland areas on the banks, which in turn provide new habitat for other plants and animals.
Beavers and flooding?
Beaver dam in Lithuania (Image: Wikipedia)
This regulation in river flow may also help reduce flooding and bankside erosion downstream. Following major floods in January 2014 (see our piece on the subject), Marina Pacheco, the chief executive of the UK Mammal Society, recommended that the UK Government promote beaver reintroductions as a means of reducing flood risk in the future, stating:
“Restoring the beaver to Britain’s rivers would bring huge benefits in terms of flood alleviation. These unpaid river engineers would quickly re-establish more natural systems that retain water behind multiple small dams across tributaries and side-streams. As a consequence the severity of flooding further downstream would be greatly reduced, at no cost to the taxpayer.”
By felling and coppicing bankside trees, beavers may create a more open, diverse riverside ecosystems, which support an array of new growth and ground vegetation such as wild flowers.
Experimental trials in Devon
Early reports from experimental trial populations of beavers undertaken by the Wildlife Trust, Devon – where a pair of animals to a small woodland enclosure – show that over a two year period the beavers acted as ‘ecosystem engineers’, opening and diversifying the woodland, creating a set of ponds which store water (potentially reducing flooding downstream) and provide new habitat for other plants and animals.
‘Wild’ beavers on the River Tay
Mother and kit on Tayside (Image: Ray Scott)
However, this process may not necessarily be positive. In 2012, it was revealed that dozens of beavers had escaped from private collections across southern Scotland and had colonised the River Tay in Perthshire. A Royal Zoological Society report from 2012 suggests that there may be as many as 140 animals living along the Tay valley.
A decision by Scottish Natural Heritage not to trap the ‘feral’ animals (as quoted in the Daily Telegraph) sparked outcry from angling groups concerned about the beaver’s presence on populations of migratory fish such as salmon, and from farmers concerned about loss of land and woodland due to tree felling and dam building.
Reintroductions and restoration: what reference conditions?
The reintroduction of plants and (particularly) animals to environments from which they once went extinct is a process fraught with numerous practical and conceptual considerations. Practically, beavers have not existed in Britain for around 500 years, and freshwater ecosystems have developed in their absence over this period. This means that whilst beavers might be considered ‘native’ to Britain, their reintroduction potentially poses new stresses to the ecosystems to which they return.
Ecological reference conditions and the Water Framework Directive
Fish pass on the River Otter in Devon – what is a natural ecosystem here? (Image: Wikipedia)
A journal article “The European reference condition concept: A scientific and technical approach to identify minimally-impacted river ecosystems” published by Isabel Pardo and colleagues in Science of the Total Environment in 2012, and co-authored by MARS partner Sebastian Birk, discusses how ecological reference conditions for the restoration of ‘good status’ in rivers are set.
One of the major challenges for the Water Framework Directive – Europe’s most important policy document on freshwater health and conservation – has been to find common approaches across different countries in defining what reference conditions should be set as targets for freshwater restoration.
Given extensive human alteration of the natural world, coupled with species introductions, migrations and extinctions, selecting a set point in time or ecosystem state as a target for restoration is likely to be problematic.
The Water Framework Directive addresses this variability by stating that ‘good status’ can be defined by geographical characteristics and location. So for example, reference conditions would be set differently for a Scandinavian mountain stream compared to a lowland river in Germany.
Setting criteria for reference sites, stress and ‘ecological thresholds’
Reflecting on restoration (Image: Per Harald Olsen)
The journal article seeks to establish levels of pressure (or stress) on freshwater ecosystems at reference sites with ‘acceptable’ or ‘good’ ecological status. The paper outlines a set of criteria that the authors see as crucial for identifying reference sites, including: pollution, water abstraction, surrounding land-use and alien species.
A key concept here is ‘ecological thresholds’, which describe points where an ecosystem may significantly change form, processes and function in response to external factors such as stress.
I spoke to MARS member and article co-author Sebastian Birk about the challenges reintroduced species such as beavers pose to setting appropriate reference conditions:
“The return of the beaver to our rivers was not really anticipated when we defined the near-natural conditions. Stream impoundments are usually man-made and are thus penalized when assessing the ecological status. The activities of the beaver, however, indicate high status conditions. This may require some rethinking among water managers as well as farmers and anglers. Especially when the riparian zones along our rivers are enhanced, creating a suitable habitat for the beaver … “
Questions for restoration
The case of beaver reintroduction provides a set of challenges to this process of setting ecological reference conditions. The animals are considered ‘native’ to Britain, yet their reintroduction has been shown to significantly alter the ecosystems in which they live and ‘engineer’.
In the case of the Devon beaver trial, the ecosystem passed a threshold from woodland with a small stream, to a more open, diverse habitat with a number of ponds and marshes within two years of the reintroduction of a pair of beavers.
In a sense, beavers bring new stresses to ecosystems that have developed in their absence over recent centuries. Despite the Pardo et al 2012 paper outlining a set of quantitative criteria for ‘natural’ reference conditions for freshwater ecosystems, it could argued that, due to the endlessly altered (and altering) environment, any definitions of ‘naturalness’ are essentially subjective.
In the case of the beaver in Britain, what choices do we make over the form and function of the freshwater environments that we want to live with and enjoy? If beaver populations continue to slowly grow across Britain, how will what we define as ‘natural’ in our rivers and lakes change, if at all?
Intensive irrigation to grow wheat, vegetables and fruits in Israel – well-known products from the home supermarket. (Image: Christian Feld)
MARS partner Dr. Christian Feld and Dr. Armin Lorenz, both from University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE) in Germany, recently visited Israel to discuss the development and establishment of a national bioindication system for the country’s freshwater ecosystems.
Bioindicators are species that can be used to monitor the health of an ecosystem. In freshwater ecology, insects such as caddis flies are often used as bioindicators to monitor the effect of stressors such as pollution on the wider environment.
Symposium to design a bioindication project for Israel
Collaboration at the symposium: Dr. Dana Milstein (Israel Nature and Park Authority), Alon Zask (Israel Ministry of Environmental Protection), Prof. Tamar Dayan, Dr. Yaron Hershkovitz, Prof. Avital Gasith (Tel Aviv University), Dr. Christian Feld (back) and Dr. Armin Lorenz (University of Duisburg-Essen) (from left to right). (Image: Christian Feld)
Invited by the Israeli Ministry of Environment Protection, Feld, Lorenz and Yaron Hershkovitz met with colleagues from Tel Aviv University, the Israeli Nature and Park Authority and the Israel Water Authority.
During a one-day symposium, the UDE scientists presented the steps towards the development of a national bioindication and biomonitoring system for rivers in Israel, and suggested ways to practically implement the project.
Feld and Lorenz’s expertise is based on more than a decade of research and practice on the European Water Framework Directive, one of the main specialisations of their department at UDE. Their visit aimed to help share insights and experiences from this work with Israeli colleagues as a means of helping strengthen freshwater conservation in Israel.
Water in Israel: multiple demands and multiple stressors
Yarkon River, Tel Aviv (Image: Wikipedia)
Israel’s waters—historically biologically rich and diverse—have undergone significant modification during the past decades, a process that is largely driven by the increasing use of land and water by humans. Typically, rain only falls in the winter months, and then largely in northern regions. As a result, demand for water for human use outstrips supply in Israel, and the country relies on engineering projects to divert and store freshwater, reclaim wastewater and desalinate seawater to ensure water availability.
Constantly growing industrial and municipal water demands – in particular intensive row-crop agriculture and recreational water uses – impose serious threats on Israel’s waters and their ecological integrity. Food production is inevitably linked to irrigation in many regions of the country. Consecutive dry winters in recent years and future climatic change are likely to amplify these water-related problems.
Israel’s freshwater biodiversity: a shortfall in ecological knowledge
The Far Eastern fire salamander (image: Wikipedia)
At present, much of Israel’s freshwater diversity remains un-catalogued – a shortfall that is particularly acute amongst smaller organisms such as insects, crayfish, snails and worms. Without knowing exactly what biodiversity is present, it is impossible to know what is being lost.
Similarly, without a detailed knowledge of smaller species such as invertebrates, it will prove difficult (if not impossible) to develop a bioindication system to monitor the health of Israel’s freshwaters. One remarkable animal that depends on Israel’s freshwaters is the Near Eastern fire salamander – its black back flecked with bright yellow warning spots – which is known to be threatened across the country by habitat loss.
Building a bioindication system
Yellow water lily (Nuphar lutea) in the Snir River, Upper Galilee (Image: Wikipedia)
The Israeli hosts presented an impressive overview of these issues during the initial one-day symposium. Together with the visiting German team, the Israeli scientists discussed options to detect and monitor the ecological effects of the intensive water uses in the country.
A first goal for the bioindication system will be to undertake a nation-wide inventory of Israel’s aquatic diversity, a research project closely linked to the establishment of the National Taxonomic Institute at the University of Tel Aviv. One of the Institute’s tasks will be to coordinate the sampling, identification and ecological cataloguing of the aquatic biodiversity, the foundations of the development of a bioindication system. It is planned that this project will be undertaken in coordination with the University of Duisburg-Essen.
Dr. Feld and Dr. Lorenz were invited to several field trips, which took the ecologists to the source of the upper Jordan River, and down the river to the Dead Sea oasis. Together with a final tour along the course of the Yarkon River – the ‘green lung’ of the Tel Aviv metropolitan area – the field trips helped the visiting scientists understand the numerous water uses and their implications for the aquatic environment and human welfare.
Christian Feld’s reflections on the trip
A restored section of the Upper Jordan River (Image: Christian Feld)
Dr. Feld summed up his reflections on the trip as:
“MARS’ research focuses on multiple stressors and Israel is one of the regions on earth to demonstrate a multi-stressor environment: water abstraction; pollution with treated and untreated waste water; eutrophication through agriculture; climate change; recreational water uses (canoeing, rafting, water hiking); salinisaton … just to name a few! It is likely to be extremely difficult to derive the right measures when it comes to environmental restoration and stress mitigation. MARS could potentially provide a tremendous body of knowledge and tools to help Israeli water managers.
I think that Israel is on the right track towards developing a freshwater bioindication system as they have already started to acknowledge that ecology is an important part of their fresh waters. It’s more than the water. And the actual practitioners in the catchments already think ecologically. Our Israeli counterparts and our hosts expressed their interest in expanding the cooperation, for us at UDE to provide advice and to conduct training workshops. They also want to send students and strengthen the already existing cooperation between our University and the University of Tel Aviv.
The Israeli landscapes and environments are very interesting and diverse. We saw mountainous areas in Upper Galilee, close to the borders of Lebanon and Syria. We then moved along the Jordan River through hilly landscapes and wide agricultural plains, just to enter the semi-arid (almost desert like) region around the Dead Sea Oasis. The Dead Sea valley is part of the Rift Valley and lies -400 m a.s.l., which is incredible! Thus, we moved from temperate Mediterranean climate in the north to semi-arid climate in the south. And all within a couple of hours drive. This is a special environment!”
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The Israel trip for the UDE scientists was funded by the European Commission, DG Enlargement, through the Technical Assistance Information Exchange Instrument (TAIEX, ETT55742).
Freshwater scientists are passionate about the state of freshwater life, but making our science relevant to policy means building a friendly dialogue with policy-makers. The recent Water Lives science-policy symposium was a land-mark for freshwater policy in the EU. It established a foundation of collegiate understanding and shared purpose for the wider freshwater science and policy community to build on. This short video and accompanying podcast produced by Helen Scales, Ria Mishaal and Paul Jepson will give you a flavour of what was achieved.
What every scientist should know about policy-making
Faliure to meet the 2010 Biodiversity targets has created an imperative to improve the science-policy interface (SPI). The EC has responded with the SPRIAL and Biodiversity Knowledge projects. However, to improve SPI, it is vital for scientists and policy-makers to get to know each other and understanding the frameworks and incentive structures that shape their respective professional cultures.
Our new pod
cast presented by Helen Scales includes frank and insightful interviews with scientists and EC policy makers on the challenges and on the ways to bring our two professions together in productive and continuous dialogue. It will be of wide interest to biodiversity scientists and policy-makers and we urge you to share it widely among your colleagues and students.
To paraphrase Albert Einstein “Science without policy is lame, policy without science is blind”. Change comes through dialogue and effective dialogue requires an understanding of others.
Meet the MARS team: Anne Lyche Solheim
Anne taking samples from a Norwegian lake for the WISER project, 2009.
Anne Lyche Solheim is a senior researcher at the Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA). Her specialisations include the ecological assessment of freshwaters for the Water Framework Directive, and the co-ordination and implementation of major European Union projects including WISER and REBECCA. We spoke to Anne about her work for the MARS project and her plans for future research.
1. What is your focus of your work in MARS?
As a leader of the MARS Work Package 8, communication and dissemination of results to stakeholders is my main focus.
However, I am also involved in the Work Package 3 experimental work in deep lake mesocosms to study the impacts of combined eutrophication and climate change pressures on the risk of harmful algal blooms in stratified lakes.
2. Why is your work important?
MARS is a policy support project, so it is vitally important that our results are effectively communicated and discussed with water managers at river basin level as well as national and European Union level.
The aim is to provide support for the 3rd river basin management plans required by the Water Framework Directive concerning how to find the best mix of mitigation and adaptation measures to counteract multiple pressures on European waters and ensure good status and provision of ecosystem services.
3. What are the key challenges for freshwater management in Europe?
The key challenges are to improve the poor ecological status presently occurring in the majority of European lakes and rivers, and also to implement the ecologically best measures to mitigate against and/or adapt to floods and droughts.
To meet these challenges the whole water catchment and all sectors using the water for food and energy production must be taken into account.
4. Tell us about a memorable experience in your career.
The two years I worked as a visiting scientist at JRC-Ispra in 2006-2007, contributing to the Water Framework Directive intercalibration of classification systems for ecological status assessment in lakes and also gaining better understanding of the impacts of climate change.
These years were an eye-opener on the importance of science-policy communication, and a door-opener to international water management related projects.
5. What inspired you to become a scientist?
A television programme on the negative impacts of water pollution in Norway’s largest river and downstream estuary.
6. What are your plans and ambitions for your future scientific work?
To do the MARS deep lake mesocosm experiments and find out whether climate change will cause harmful algal blooms to occur at lower nutrient levels than earlier.
Otherwise, to contribute to the European Freshwater Ecosystem Assessment and the EU Biodiversity strategy 2020 by assessing the potential for harmonisation of the Water Framework Directive and the Habitats Directive based on an analysis of their systems of typology and status assessments.
Finally, to influence the Water Framework Directive revision in 2018 using outputs from MARS and other projects and processes.
Tomorrow, March 22nd 2014, is the United Nations World Water Day, an annual event that focuses attention on the importance of freshwater environments. A 2012 UNICEF report estimates that at least 780 million people globally – approximately one in nine of the world’s population – do not have access to safe, clean drinking water.
This year, the theme of the day is energy. The World Water Development Report launched today, focuses on the relationships between water and energy production, outlining that hydroelectricity is the world’s largest source of renewable energy, and roughly 75% of all industrial water withdrawals from global freshwaters are used for hydroelectricity. These are key global issues, as David Malone, Rector of the United Nations University – the convenors of this year’s World Water Day – states: “Energy and water are at the top of the global development agenda … it is essential that we stimulate more debate and interactive dialogue around possible solutions to our energy and water challenges”.
Given that more than 1.3 billion people globally do not have access to electricity, one thread that World Water Day aims to discuss is the merits of using freshwater as an energy source. Hydroelectricity offers the potential of renewable, low-carbon energy production – advocated under the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism – but what are the effects of its development on freshwater environments?
Image credit: World Water Day 2014
Hydropower, fragmentation and ecological stress
From the perspective of the MARS project, we could see this debate as being about the different stresses that energy production places upon freshwater environments. A key stress on freshwaters by energy production is fragmentation from hydropower schemes.
Dams built for hydropower fragment rivers, altering the timing, quantity and quality of water flows, permanently flooding surrounding upstream areas and providing barriers to the movement of animals, sediment and nutrients (see this World Commission on Dams report from 2000). This process of fragmentation has the potential to significantly alter the ecological functioning and health of freshwater ecosystems, and reduce the services they provide to humans.
Hydropower and ecological, social and economic sustainability
Former director of the WWF Freshwater Program Jamie Pittock, whose current research examines the relationships between water and energy, suggests that this process of fragmentation is synergistic with another major freshwater stress – climate change. In a 2010 viewpoint article in Water Alternatives, Pittock suggests that as climate change continues to develop and impact on freshwaters – causing water scarcity in some areas, flooding in others – more hydropower schemes are built as low-carbon energy policy solutions, adding further stresses to freshwater environments already under threat.
According to a 2003 UN report, 60% of the world’s largest 227 rivers are severely fragmented by dams and other diversions. As Ute Collier of the WWF Freshwater Programme outlines in a 2004 paper ‘Hydropower and the Environment: Towards Better Decision Making’, a key question to answer is how the potential of sustainable, low-carbon energy production offered by hydroelectric schemes can be balanced with the negative ecological impacts of fragmenting freshwater ecosystems.
In addition, Collier notes that the negative effects of ecosystem fragmentation and degradation by hydroelectric schemes often disproportionately affect the poorest in society by displacing communities and reducing ecosystem service production, for example fish to eat and water to drink. Can we manage the energy, food and water needs of growing populations without compromising the health of our freshwater ecosystems?
Image credit: World Water Day 2014
Certification for sustainable hydropower schemes?
A potentially promising development is the foundation of the Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Forum in an effort to design a certification scheme to ensure certain environmental and social guidelines are met by new hydropower schemes. The Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Protocol was launched in 2011, to give a set of criteria against which hydroelectric schemes could be assessed for environmental, social, technical and economic sustainability.
Such certification schemes already successfully exist for sustainable wood (Forest Stewardship Council), palm oil (Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil) and fish (Marine Stewardship Council) markets. It will be interesting to see what effect the Hydropower Protocol has on future hydropower development, particularly in how ecosystem health can be conserved or restored as part of such schemes.
A wider to debate – lend your voice
World Water Day is a valuable event to prompt debate about these issues, and discuss them amongst a global community. This article has only highlighted one strand of a major, emerging debate over the interrelationships between energy and water. We’d encourage you to leave a comment below if you’ve any thoughts, ideas or questions on this or the wider debate.
MARS interview with Angus Webb, University of Melbourne
Christian Feld talked to project partner Angus Webb of the University of Melbourne in the leafy grounds of the hotel at the MARS kickoff meeting on Mallorca in February 2014.
Meet the MARS Team: Sebastian Birk
Sebastian presenting to the MARS kickoff meeting in Mallorca (photo: Christian Feld)
Today we begin the first in a series of ‘Meet the Team’ articles where we talk to the people involved in the MARS project to find out more about their work.
Sebastian Birk is a researcher at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany. He is a specialist in the ecological assessment of European freshwaters, and his work on the topic has contributed to the design and implementation of the Water Framework Directive.
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1. What is the focus of your work for MARS?
I am part of the MARS coordination team at the University of Duisburg-Essen, and I lead the scientific work package on defining the frameworks for understanding and studying multiple stressors. I am especially interested in tasks covering indicators of the effects that the multiple pressures have on our freshwater.
2. Why is your work important?
Recently I read a newspaper article about the growing public awareness regarding environmental issues. Despite this, however, there is no effective halting of biodiversity loss in our freshwaters, and salmon shoals do not yet return to German rivers.
This seems contradictory, but it is symptomatic of our modern-day society: walking the thin line between green consciousness and green-washing. I believe that MARS can provide a fundamental contribution to enhance sustainable management of our freshwaters for the benefits of humans and nature.
A silent cruise across the Dalälven, Sweden (photo: Sebastian Birk)
3. What are the key challenges for freshwater management in Europe?
In my opinion it is the diverging priorities of wider society, which does not value Europe’s ecosystem health highly. Environmental issues call for constant advocacy.
And here I think of our scientific commitment, for instance, to responsibly implement the idea of ecosystem services (one strand of research we are following in MARS). And beyond the ecological sphere, to think of how alternative socio-economic models such as the steady state economy (see this Herman Daly article on the subject) may allow us to frame a different agenda for Europe’s environments.
Muddy waters: the Garonne river near Bordeaux (photo: Sebastian Birk)
4. Tell us about a memorable experience in your career.
There are quite a few that I remember. Meeting with people, exchanging views and ideas, creating common ambitions and solutions, and building friendships across this beautiful European continent.
Canoeing the sea stretch of the Miño, searching for foggy ponds in Les Landes or cooling down from the Pannonian heat on the Danube bend are all memories to remember.
A Swedish spring: the perfect working environment (photo: Sebastian Birk)
5. What inspired you to become a scientist?
Let me answer with the quote by Nobel laureate Sir Peter Medawar:
“Scientists are people of very dissimilar temperaments doing different things in very different ways. Among scientists are collectors, classifiers and compulsive tidiers-up; many are detectives by temperament and many are explorers; some are artists and others artisans. There are poet-scientists and philosopher-scientists and even a few mystics. What sort of mind or temperament can all these people be supposed to have in common? Obligative scientists must be very rare, and most people who are in fact scientists could easily have been something else instead.”
I guess doing science simply has the most of everything.
6. What are your plans and ambitions for your future scientific work?
On this ‘voyage’ to MARS I am focused on keeping my direction. Once landed, new horizons will appear that will certainly motivate me to face fresh challenges. I am already curious …
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