Title
Managing the effects of multiple stressors on aquatic ecosystems under water scarcity. The GLOBAQUA project
Author
Navarro-Ortega, A.
Acuña, V.
Bellin, A.
Burek, P.
Cassiani, G.
Choukr-Allah, R.
Dolédec, S.
Elosegi, A.
Ferrari, F.
Ginebreda, A.
Grathwohl, P.
Jones, C.
Rault, P.K.
Kok, K.
Koundouri, P.
Ludwig, R.P.
Merz, R.
Milacic, R.
Muñoz, I.
Nikulin, G.
Paniconi, C.
Paunović, M.
Petrovic, M.
Sabater, L.
Sabaterb, S.
Skoulikidis, N.T.
Slob, A.
Teutsch, G.
Voulvoulis, N.
Barceló, D.
Publication year
2015
Abstract
Water scarcity is a serious environmental problem in many European regions, and will likely increase in the near future as a consequence of increased abstraction and climate change. Water scarcity exacerbates the effects of multiple stressors, and thus results in decreased water quality. It impacts river ecosystems, threatens the services they provide, and it will force managers and policy-makers to change their current practices. The EU-FP7 project GLOBAQUA aims at identifying the prevalence, interaction and linkages between stressors, and to assess their effects on the chemical and ecological status of freshwater ecosystems in order to improve water management practice and policies. GLOBAQUA assembles a multidisciplinary team of 21 European plus 2 non-European scientific institutions, as well as water authorities and river basin managers. The project includes experts in hydrology, chemistry, biology, geomorphology, modelling, socio-economics, governance science, knowledge brokerage, and policy advocacy. GLOBAQUA studies six river basins (Ebro, Adige, Sava, Evrotas, Anglian and Souss Massa) affected by water scarcity, and aims to answer the following questions: how does water scarcity interact with other existing stressors in the study river basins? How will these interactions change according to the different scenarios of future global change? Which will be the foreseeable consequences for river ecosystems? How will these in turn affect the services the ecosystems provide? How should management and policies be adapted to minimise the ecological, economic and societal consequences? These questions will be approached by combining data-mining, field- and laboratory-based research, and modelling. Here, we outline the general structure of the project and the activities to be conducted within the fourteen work-packages of GLOBAQUA.
Subject
Strategy & Policy Analysis
SP2 - Strategy & Policy 2
ELSS - Earth, Life and Social Sciences
Infostructures
Environment
Information Society
Climate scenarios
Improved management
Modelling
Ecosystem services
Multiple stressors
Models
Climate change
Ecosystem service
Environmental stress
European Union
Modeling
Biology
Chemistry
Water management
To reference this document use:
http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:81b9d9de-5660-47e8-9188-13b85c7b391a
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2014.06.081
TNO identifier
520238
Publisher
Elsevier
ISSN
0048-9697
Source
Science of the Total Environment, 503-504, 3-9
Document type
article