title: Managing the effects of multiple stressors on aquatic ecosystems under water scarcity. The GLOBAQUA project.
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.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Environmental Assessment and Water Research (IDAEA-CSIC), Barcelona Spain. Electronic address: alicia.navarro@idaea.csic.es.
authors.forename: Alícia
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Navarro-Ortega
authors.affiliation: Catalan Institute for Water Research (ICRA), Girona, Spain.
authors.forename: Vicenç
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Acuña
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil, Environmental and Mechanical Engineering, University of Trento (UNITN), Trento, Italy.
authors.forename: Alberto
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bellin
authors.affiliation: Institute for Environment and Sustainability (IES-JRC), Ispra, Italy.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Burek
authors.affiliation: Department of Geosciences, University of Padova (UNIPD), Padova, Italy.
authors.forename: Giorgio
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Cassiani
authors.affiliation: Institute of Agronomy and Veterinary Hassan II (IAV), Agadir, Morocco.
authors.forename: Redouane
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Choukr-Allah
authors.affiliation: Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1(CNRS-LEHNA), Lyon, France.
authors.forename: Sylvain
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Dolédec
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Science and Technology, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Bilbao, Spain.
authors.forename: Arturo
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Elosegi
authors.affiliation: AEIFORIA, srl, Fidenza, Italy.
authors.forename: Federico
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Ferrari
authors.affiliation: Institute of Environmental Assessment and Water Research (IDAEA-CSIC), Barcelona Spain.
authors.forename: Antoni
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ginebreda
authors.affiliation: Center for Applied Geosciences, Tuebingen University (EKUT), Tuebingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Grathwohl
authors.affiliation: Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute, Rossby Centre (SMHI), Norrköping, Sweden.
authors.forename: Colin
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Jones
authors.affiliation: Climate Change and Adaptive Land and Water Management Team, Wageningen University and Research Centre (ALTERRA), Wageningen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Philippe Ker
authors.initials: PK
authors.lastname: Rault
authors.affiliation: Wageningen University (WU), Wageningen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Kasper
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kok
authors.affiliation: Research and Innovation Centre in Information, Communication and Knowledge Technologies (ATHENA), Athens, Greece; Athens University of Economics and Business, Athens, Greece; London School of Economics and Political Science, London, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Phoebe
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Koundouri
authors.affiliation: Department of Geography, Faculty of Geosciences, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, (LMU), München, Germany.
authors.forename: Ralf Peter
authors.initials: RP
authors.lastname: Ludwig
authors.affiliation: Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Ralf
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Merz
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental Sciences, Jožef Stefan Institute, (JSI), Ljubljana, Slovenia.
authors.forename: Radmila
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Milacic
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology, University of Barcelona (UB), Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Isabel
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Muñoz
authors.affiliation: Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute, Rossby Centre (SMHI), Norrköping, Sweden.
authors.forename: Grigory
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Nikulin
authors.affiliation: Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS), Quebec City, Canada.
authors.forename: Claudio
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Paniconi
authors.affiliation: University of Belgrade, Institute for Biological Research Siniša Stanković (IBISS), Belgrade, Serbia.
authors.forename: Momir
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Paunović
authors.affiliation: Catalan Institute for Water Research (ICRA), Girona, Spain; Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA), Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Mira
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Petrovic
authors.affiliation: Institute of Environmental Assessment and Water Research (IDAEA-CSIC), Barcelona Spain.
authors.forename: Laia
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Sabater
authors.affiliation: Institute of Aquatic Ecology, University of Girona, Girona, Spain.
authors.forename: Sergi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sabaterb
authors.affiliation: Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, Institute of Marine Biological Resources & Inland Waters (HCMR), Athens, Greece.
authors.forename: Nikolaos Th
authors.initials: NT
authors.lastname: Skoulikidis
authors.affiliation: Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO), Delft, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Adriaan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Slob
authors.affiliation: Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Georg
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Teutsch
authors.affiliation: The Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine (IMPERIAL), London, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Nikolaos
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Voulvoulis
authors.affiliation: Institute of Environmental Assessment and Water Research (IDAEA-CSIC), Barcelona Spain; Catalan Institute for Water Research (ICRA), Girona, Spain.
authors.forename: Damià
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Barceló
mesh_terms: D057231:Climate Change; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources / Q000379:methods*; D017753:Ecosystem; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D060753:Water Quality / Q000592:standards*; D014881:Water Supply
keywords: Climate scenarios; Ecosystem functioning; Ecosystem services; Improved management; Modelling; Water quality