title: Managing aquatic ecosystems and water resources under multiple stress--an introduction to the MARS project.
abstract: Water resources globally are affected by a complex mixture of stressors resulting from a range of drivers, including urban and agricultural land use, hydropower generation and climate change. Understanding how stressors interfere and impact upon ecological status and ecosystem services is essential for developing effective River Basin Management Plans and shaping future environmental policy. This paper details the nature of these problems for Europe's water resources and the need to find solutions at a range of spatial scales. In terms of the latter, we describe the aims and approaches of the EU-funded project MARS (Managing Aquatic ecosystems and water Resources under multiple Stress) and the conceptual and analytical framework that it is adopting to provide this knowledge, understanding and tools needed to address multiple stressors. MARS is operating at three scales: At the water body scale, the mechanistic understanding of stressor interactions and their impact upon water resources, ecological status and ecosystem services will be examined through multi-factorial experiments and the analysis of long time-series. At the river basin scale, modelling and empirical approaches will be adopted to characterise relationships between multiple stressors and ecological responses, functions, services and water resources. The effects of future land use and mitigation scenarios in 16 European river basins will be assessed. At the European scale, large-scale spatial analysis will be carried out to identify the relationships amongst stress intensity, ecological status and service provision, with a special focus on large transboundary rivers, lakes and fish. The project will support managers and policy makers in the practical implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD), of related legislation and of the Blueprint to Safeguard Europe's Water Resources by advising the 3rd River Basin Management Planning cycle, the revision of the WFD and by developing new tools for diagnosing and predicting multiple stressors.
authors.affiliation: University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE), Centre of Water and Environmental Research (ZWU), Germany. Electronic address: daniel.hering@uni-due.de.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Hering
authors.affiliation: Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Laurence
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Carvalho
authors.affiliation: National Research Institute of science and Technology for Environment and Agriculture (IRSTEA), France.
authors.forename: Christine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Argillier
authors.affiliation: Middle East Technical University (METU), Turkey.
authors.forename: Meryem
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Beklioglu
authors.affiliation: AZTI-Tecnalia (AZTI), Spain.
authors.forename: Angel
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Borja
authors.affiliation: European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), Italy.
authors.forename: Ana Cristina
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Cardoso
authors.affiliation: Stichting DELTARES (DELTARES), The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Harm
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Duel
authors.affiliation: University of Lisbon (ULisboa), Portugal.
authors.forename: Teresa
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ferreira
authors.affiliation: University of Ljubljana (UL), Slovenia.
authors.forename: Lidija
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Globevnik
authors.affiliation: Danube Delta National Institute for Research and Development (DDNI), Romania.
authors.forename: Jenica
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hanganu
authors.affiliation: Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE), Finland.
authors.forename: Seppo
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hellsten
authors.affiliation: Aarhus University (AU), Denmark.
authors.forename: Erik
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Jeppesen
authors.affiliation: Czech Hydrometeorological Institute (CHMI), Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Vit
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Kodeš
authors.affiliation: Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA), Norway.
authors.forename: Anne Lyche
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Solheim
authors.affiliation: Estonian University of Life Sciences (EMU), Estonia.
authors.forename: Tiina
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nõges
authors.affiliation: Cardiff University (CU), United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Steve
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ormerod
authors.affiliation: National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), Greece.
authors.forename: Yiannis
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Panagopoulos
authors.affiliation: University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU), Austria.
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Schmutz
authors.affiliation: Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (FVB-IGB), Germany.
authors.forename: Markus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Venohr
authors.affiliation: University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE), Centre of Water and Environmental Research (ZWU), Germany.
authors.forename: Sebastian
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Birk
mesh_terms: D057231:Climate Change; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources / Q000379:methods*; D017753:Ecosystem; D004784:Environmental Monitoring; D058735:Environmental Policy; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D062066:Water Resources; D014881:Water Supply
keywords: Blueprint to safeguard Europe's waters; Ecological status; Ecosystem services; Europe; River Basin Management; Water Framework Directive