Research project DESTRESS: DEciphering temporal trends and safe operating spaces for river biodiversity within the context of multiple STRESSors
DESTRESS will synthesise and analyse unique and comprehensive time series of European riverine macroinvertebrate monitoring data to identify temporal trends in ecological and biological trait composition, abundance, and common biodiversity metrics (based on >2,000 sites across 23 European countries; 1968-2020, average 15 years of sampling).
The DESTRESS project will leverage extensive biodiversity time series data from European rivers to analyse biodiversity trends, their links with contaminants, and the impacts of multiple stressors. By defining Safe Operating Spaces for biodiversity in diverse river systems, DESTRESS aims to create actionable guidance, co-developed with water managers and authorities, to balance freshwater biodiversity needs with human water demands. This work will also inform and prioritize future biodiversity monitoring needs.
Intensified exploitation of freshwater resources and climate change cause increasing frequency, duration, and magnitude of hydrological extreme events. In addition, pollution of freshwater ecosystems with thousands of hazardous chemicals threatens freshwater biodiversity, and water and food security. These biodiversity threats are further exacerbated by additional co-occurring stressors such as morphological degradation and invasive species.
DESTRESS will exploit existing, unique, and comprehensive time series of European stream and river biodiversity monitoring data to synthesise current knowledge on biodiversity trends and their relationships with contaminant exposures and changing hydrological regimes and how these relationships are influenced by multiple stressors.
DESTRESS will develop an operational concept for identifying Safe Operating Spaces for biodiversity protection in multi-functional (e.g., food production and flood and drought management) stream and river systems. This knowledge will be translated into actionable guidance co-created together with stakeholders, including water managers, and relevant authorities for balancing water quantity and quality needs between freshwater biodiversity and human society.
Moreover, the results of DESTRESS will serve the purpose of pinpointing and prioritising biodiversity monitoring needs (i.e., spatial vs temporal biodiversity monitoring for detecting biodiversity trends and supporting hydrological and contaminant parameters for diagnostic purposes of observed biodiversity trends).
The overall objective of DESTRESS is to provide guidance and actionable knowledge needed to balance freshwater needs between riverine biodiversity and human society. This will enable a faster and more informed transition towards biodiversity-positive management and policies in river catchments with multiple functions and potentially conflicting interests. Specific research objectives of DESTRESS are to:
- Synthesise and analyse the ability to detect biodiversity change based on existing spatial (EU Water Framework Directive) and temporal data.
- Synthesise and analyse the responses of unique and comprehensive time series of European riverine macroinvertebrate communities to changes in hydrological regimes and contaminant exposure – also in a multiple stressor context.
- Synthesise and analyse riverine biodiversity change points to define Safe Operating Spaces for bio-diversity protection in the context of changing hydrological regimes and contaminant exposure to support evidence-based implementation of the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030.
- Through engagement and co-creation with key stakeholders operationalise the Safe Operating Spaces concept to fit stakeholder needs and existing legal frameworks from local to European scale
DESTRESS is organised in five scientific workpackages:
WP1 contains stakeholder engagement and interaction, co-creative guidance development serving to operationalise the Safe Operating Spaces concept, and extrapolation from the case level to relevant stakeholders including water managers and relevant authorities at the European scale,
WP2 analyses biodiversity trends within spatial and temporal macroinvertebrate data sets and provides customised data for WP3, WP4, and WP5,
WP3 analyses biodiversity responses and change points in relation to simulated contaminant stress and provides data for WP5,
WP4 pinpoints relevant hydrological parameters, simulates hydrological regimes, analyses biodiversity responses and change points to hydrological stress, and provides data for WP5,
WP5 analyses biodiversity responses to multiple stressors and develops the Safe Operating Spaces concept.
Locations and ecological quality sites across Europe.
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