Suchergebnisse

Legislations and commitments regulate Baltic Sea status assessments and monitoring. These assessments suffer from monitoring gaps that need prioritization. We used three sources of information; scientific articles, project reports and a stakeholder survey to identify gaps in relation to requirements set by the HELCOM's Baltic Sea Action Plan, the Marine Strategy Framework Directive and the Water Framework Directive. The most frequently mentioned gap was that key requirements are not sufficiently monitored in space and time. Biodiversity monitoring was the category containing most gaps. However, whereas more than half of the gaps in reports related to biodiversity, scientific articles pointed out many gaps in the monitoring of pollution and water quality. An important finding was that the three sources differed notably with respect to which gaps were mentioned most often. Thus, conclusions about gap prioritization for management should be drawn after carefully considering the different viewpoints of scientists and stakeholders. ; publishedVersion

AbstractExposure to synthetic chemicals, such as pesticides and pharmaceuticals, affects freshwater communities at broad spatial scales. This risk is commonly managed in a prospective environmental risk assessment (ERA). Relying on generic methods, a few standard test organisms, and safety factors to account for uncertainty, ERA determines concentrations that are assumed to pose low risks to ecosystems. Currently, this procedure neglects potential variation in assemblage sensitivity among ecosystem types and recommends a single low-risk concentration for each compound. Whether systematic differences in assemblage sensitivity among ecosystem types exist or their size, are currently unknown. Elucidating spatial patterns in sensitivity to chemicals could therefore enhance ERA precision and narrow a fundamental knowledge gap in ecology, the Hutchinsonian shortfall. We analyzed whether taxonomic turnover between field-sampled macroinvertebrate assemblages of different broad river types across Europe results in systematic differences in assemblage sensitivity to copper and imidacloprid. We used an extensive database of macroinvertebrate assemblage compositions throughout Europe and employed a hierarchical species sensitivity distribution model to predict the concentration that would be harmful to 5% of taxa (HC5) in each assemblage. Predicted $$H{C}_{5}$$

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values varied over several orders of magnitude. However, variation within the 95% highest density intervals remained within one order of magnitude. Differences between the river types were minor for imidacloprid and only slightly higher for copper. The largest difference between river-type-specific median $$H{C}_{5}$$

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values was a factor of 3.1. This level of variation is below the assessment factors recommended by the European Food Safety Authority and therefore would be captured in the current ERA for plant protection products. We conclude that the differences in taxonomic composition between broad river types translate into relatively small differences in macroinvertebrate assemblage sensitivity toward the evaluated chemicals at the European scale. However, systematic differences in bioavailability and multi-stressor context were not evaluated and might exacerbate the differences in the ecological effects of chemicals among broad river types in real-world ecosystems.

The Water Framework Directive is the first international legislation to require European countries to establish comparable ecological assessment schemes for their freshwaters. A key element in harmonising quality classification within and between Europe's river basins is an "Intercalibration" exercise, stipulated by the WFD, to ensure that the good status boundaries in all of the biological assessment methods correspond to similar levels of anthropogenic pressure. In this article, we provide a comprehensive overview of this international comparison, focusing on the assessment schemes developed for freshwater lakes. Out of 82 lake ecological assessment methods reported for the comparison, 62 were successfully intercalibrated and included in the EC Decision on intercalibration, with a high proportion of phytoplankton (18), macrophyte (17) and benthic fauna (13) assessment methods. All the lake assessment methods are reviewed in this article, including the results of intercalibration. Furthermore, the current gaps and way forward to reach consistent management objectives for European lakes are discussed.

The Water Framework Directive is the first international legislation to require European countries to establish comparable ecological assessment schemes for their freshwaters. A key element in harmonising quality classification within and between Europe's river basins is an "Intercalibration" exercise, stipulated by the WFD, to ensure that the good status boundaries in all of the biological assessment methods correspond to similar levels of anthropogenic pressure. In this article, we provide a comprehensive overview of this international comparison, focusing on the assessment schemes developed for freshwater lakes. Out of 82 lake ecological assessment methods reported for the comparison, 62 were successfully intercalibrated and included in the EC Decision on intercalibration, with a high proportion of phytoplankton (18), macrophyte (17) and benthic fauna (13) assessment methods. All the lake assessment methods are reviewed in this article, including the results of intercalibration. Furthermore, the current gaps and way forward to reach consistent management objectives for European lakes are discussed. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. ; Peer reviewed