Scientific Results

This catalogue is obtained by conducting a systematic literature review of scientific studies and reviews related to monitoring, forecasting, and simulating the inland water cycle. The analysis maps scientific expertise across research groups and classifies findings by the type of inland water studied, application focus, and geographical scope. A gap analysis will identify missing research areas and assess their relevance to policymaking.

ID â–Č Type Year Authors Title Venue/Journal DOI Research type Water System Technical Focus Abstract Link with Projects Link with Tools Related policies ID
publications-2591 Peer reviewed articles 2020 Susanne Klages, Claudia Heidecke, Bernhard Osterburg, John Bailey, Irina Calciu, Clare Casey, Tommy Dalgaard, Hanna Frick, MatjaĆŸ Glavan, Karoline D’Haene, Georges Hofman, InĂȘs LeitĂŁo, Nicolas Surdyk, Koos Verloop, Gerard Velthof Nitrogen Surplus—A Unified Indicator for Water Pollution in Europe? Water 10.3390/w12041197 Simulation & Modeling Uncategorized Pollution of ground-and surface waters with nitrates from agricultural sources poses a risk to drinking water quality and has negative impacts on the environment. At the national scale, the gross nitrogen budget (GNB) is accepted as an indicator of pollution caused by nitrates. There is, however, little common EU-wide knowledge on the budget application and its comparability at the farm level for the detection of ground-and surface water pollution caused by nitrates and the monitoring of mitigation measures. Therefore, a survey was carried out among experts of various European countries in order to assess the practice and application of fertilization planning and nitrogen budgeting at the farm level and the differences between countries within Europe. While fertilization planning is practiced in all of the fourteen countries analyzed in this paper, according to current legislation, nitrogen budgets have to be calculated only in Switzerland, Germany and Romania. The survey revealed that methods of fertilization planning and nitrogen budgeting at the farm level are not unified throughout Europe. In most of the cases where budgets are used regularly (Germany, Romania, Switzerland), standard values for the chemical composition of feed, organic fertilizers, animal and plant products are used. The example of the Dutch Annual Nutrient Cycling Assessment (ANCA) tool (and partly of the Suisse Balance) shows that it is only by using farm-specific “real” data that budgeting can be successfully applied to optimize nutrient flows and increase N efficiencies at the farm level. However, this approach is more elaborate and requires centralized data processing under consideration of data protection concerns. This paper concludes that there is no unified indicator for nutrient management and water quality at the farm level. A comparison of regionally calculated nitrogen budgets across European countries needs to be interpreted carefully, as methods as well as data and emission factors vary across countries. For the implementation of EU nitrogen-related policies—notably, the Nitrates Directive—nutrient budgeting is currently ruled out as an entry point for legal requirements. In contrast, nutrient budgets are highlighted as an environment indicator by the OECD and EU institutions. 727984
publications-2592 Peer reviewed articles 2018 Laura Clusa, E. García-Vázquez A simple, rapid method for detecting seven common invasive fish species in Europe from environmental DNA Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems 10.1002/aqc.2890 Simulation & Modeling Uncategorized Abstract Biological invasions are a global threat to biodiversity, and many arise from deliberate introductions. The American freshwater fish Micropterus salmoides and Ameiurus spp. (Ameiurus melas and Ameiurus nebulosus) were introduced to Europe for recreational fishing, Gambusia holbrooki and Gambusia affinis were introduced for mosquito population control, and Lepomis gibbosus was introduced as an ornamental species. The Asiatic Pseudorasbora parva was acquired inadvertently as an accompanying species in fish consignments. This article presents a novel approach for detecting these species directly from water samples based on a panel of five taxon‐specific primers within 16S rDNA. The primers were validated from tissue, in aquarium experiments, and from Ebro River water samples (Spain). With a simple polymerase chain reaction (PCR) protocol, followed by visualization in agarose gel or capillary electrophoresis, it was possible to detect these species from environmental DNA concentrations as low as 0.89–100 pg mL–1. This sensitive and economical tool can be used to control European invasions of these species and to preserve native biodiversity. 689682
publications-2593 Peer reviewed articles 2020 Alexa Hoke, Jason Woodhouse, Luca Zoccarato, Valerie McCarthy, Elvira de Eyto, Maria CalderĂł-Pascual, Ewan Geffroy, Mary Dillane, Hans-Peter Grossart, Eleanor Jennings Impacts of Extreme Weather Events on Bacterial Community Composition of a Temperate Humic Lake Water 10.3390/w12102757 Simulation & Modeling Groundwater Extreme weather events are projected to increase in frequency and intensity as climate change continues. Heterotrophic bacteria play a critical role in lake ecosystems, yet little research has been done to determine how they are affected by such extremes. The purpose of this study was to use high-throughput sequencing to explore the bacterial community composition of a humic oligotrophic lake on the North Atlantic Irish coast and to assess the impacts on composition dynamics related to extreme weather events. Samples for sequencing were collected from Lough Feeagh on a fortnightly basis from April to November 2018. Filtration was used to separate free-living and particle-associated bacterial communities and amplicon sequencing was performed for the 16S rRNA V4 region. Two named storms, six high discharge events, and one drought period occurred during the sampling period. These events had variable, context-dependent effects on bacterial communities in Lough Feeagh. The particle-associated community was found to be more likely to respond to physical changes, such as mixing, while the free-living population responded to changes in nutrient and carbon concentrations. Generally, however, the high stability of the bacterial community observed in Lough Feeagh suggests that the bacterial community is relatively resilient to extreme weather events. 722518
publications-2594 Peer reviewed articles 2020 Kristi Uudeberg, Age Aavaste, Kerttu-Liis KĂ”ks, Ave Ansper, Mirjam UusĂ”ue, Kersti Kangro, Ilmar Ansko, Martin Ligi, Kaire Toming, Anu Reinart Optical Water Type Guided Approach to Estimate Optical Water Quality Parameters Remote Sensing 10.3390/rs12060931 Simulation & Modeling Wastewater Treatment Plants Currently, water monitoring programs are mainly based on in situ measurements; however, this approach is time-consuming, expensive, and may not reflect the status of the whole water body. The availability of Multispectral Imager (MSI) and Ocean and Land Colour Instrument (OLCI) free data with high spectral, spatial, and temporal resolution has increased the potential of adding remote sensing techniques into monitoring programs, leading to improvement of the quality of monitoring water. This study introduced an optical water type guided approach for boreal regions inland and coastal waters to estimate optical water quality parameters, such as the concentration of chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) and total suspended matter (TSM), the absorption coefficient of coloured dissolved organic matter at a wavelength of 442 nm (aCDOM(442)), and the Secchi disk depth, from hyperspectral, OLCI, and MSI reflectance data. This study was based on data from 51 Estonian and Finnish lakes and from the Baltic Sea coastal area, which altogether were used in 415 in situ measurement stations and covered a wide range of optical water quality parameters (Chl-a: 0.5–215.2 mg·m−3; TSM: 0.6–46.0 mg·L−1; aCDOM(442): 0.4–43.7 m−1; and Secchi disk depth: 0.2–12.2 m). For retrieving optical water quality parameters from reflectance spectra, we tested 132 empirical algorithms. The study results describe the best algorithm for each optical water type for each spectral range and for each optical water quality parameter. The correlation was high, from 0.87 up to 0.93, between the in situ measured optical water quality parameters and the parameters predicted by the optical water type guided approach. 730066
publications-2595 Peer reviewed articles 2021 Daniel Sauter, Agata Dąbrowska, Robert Bloch, Michael Stapf, Ulf Miehe, Alexander Sperlich, Regina Gnirss, Thomas Wintgens Deep-bed filters as post-treatment for ozonation in tertiary municipal wastewater treatment: impact of design and operation on treatment goals Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology 10.1039/d0ew00684j Simulation & Modeling River Basins The removal of organic contaminants during post-treatment with deep-bed filters after ozonation in tertiary municipal wastewater treatment can be optimised by the choice of filter material and contact time. 689450
publications-2596 Peer reviewed articles 2020 Stephen C. Maberly, Ruth A. O’Donnell, R. Iestyn Woolway, Mark E. J. Cutler, Mengyi Gong, Ian D. Jones, Christopher J. Merchant, Claire A. Miller, Eirini Politi, E. Marian Scott, Stephen J. Thackeray, Andrew N. Tyler Global lake thermal regions shift under climate change Nature Communications 10.1038/s41467-020-15108-z AI & Machine Learning Water Distribution Networks AbstractWater temperature is critical for the ecology of lakes. However, the ability to predict its spatial and seasonal variation is constrained by the lack of a thermal classification system. Here we define lake thermal regions using objective analysis of seasonal surface temperature dynamics from satellite observations. Nine lake thermal regions are identified that mapped robustly and largely contiguously globally, even for small lakes. The regions differed from other global patterns, and so provide unique information. Using a lake model forced by 21st century climate projections, we found that 12%, 27% and 66% of lakes will change to a lower latitude thermal region by 2080–2099 for low, medium and high greenhouse gas concentration trajectories (Representative Concentration Pathways 2.6, 6.0 and 8.5) respectively. Under the worst-case scenario, a 79% reduction in the number of lakes in the northernmost thermal region is projected. This thermal region framework can facilitate the global scaling of lake-research. 791812
publications-2597 Peer reviewed articles 2020 Harriet L. Wilson, Ana I. Ayala, Ian D. Jones, Alec Rolston, Don Pierson, Elvira de Eyto, Hans-Peter Grossart, Marie-Elodie Perga, R. Iestyn Woolway, Eleanor Jennings Variability in epilimnion depth estimations in lakes Hydrology and Earth System Sciences 10.5194/hess-24-5559-2020 Hydrological modeling River Basins Abstract. The epilimnion is the surface layer of a lake typically characterised as well mixed and is decoupled from the metalimnion due to a steep change in density. The concept of the epilimnion (and, more widely, the three-layered structure of a stratified lake) is fundamental in limnology, and calculating the depth of the epilimnion is essential to understanding many physical and ecological lake processes. Despite the ubiquity of the term, however, there is no objective or generic approach for defining the epilimnion, and a diverse number of approaches prevail in the literature. Given the increasing availability of water temperature and density profile data from lakes with a high spatio-temporal resolution, automated calculations, using such data, are particularly common, and they have vast potential for use with evolving long-term globally measured and modelled datasets. However, multi-site and multi-year studies, including those related to future climate impacts, require robust and automated algorithms for epilimnion depth estimation. In this study, we undertook a comprehensive comparison of commonly used epilimnion depth estimation methods, using a combined 17-year dataset, with over 4700 daily temperature profiles from two European lakes. Overall, we found a very large degree of variability in the estimated epilimnion depth across all methods and thresholds investigated and for both lakes. These differences, manifesting over high-frequency data, led to fundamentally different understandings of the epilimnion depth. In addition, estimations of the epilimnion depth were highly sensitive to small changes in the threshold value, complex thermal water column structures, and vertical data resolution. These results call into question the custom of arbitrary method selection and the potential problems this may cause for studies interested in estimating the ecological processes occurring within the epilimnion, multi-lake comparisons, or long-term time series analysis. We also identified important systematic differences between methods, which demonstrated how and why methods diverged. These results may provide rationale for future studies to select an appropriate epilimnion definition in light of their particular purpose and with awareness of the limitations of individual methods. While there is no prescribed rationale for selecting a particular method, the method which defined the epilimnion depth as the shallowest depth, where the density was 0.1 kg m−3 more than the surface density, may be particularly useful as a generic method. 791812
publications-2598 Peer reviewed articles 2020 Paolo Villa, Mariano Bresciani, Rossano Bolpagni, Federica Braga, Dario Bellingeri, Claudia Giardino Impact of upstream landslide on perialpine lake ecosystem: An assessment using multi-temporal satellite data Science of The Total Environment 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.137627 Uncategorized Uncategorized No abstract available 730066
publications-2599 Peer reviewed articles 2020 Tuuli Soomets, Kristi Uudeberg, Dainis Jakovels, Agris Brauns, Matiss Zagars, Tiit Kutser Validation and Comparison of Water Quality Products in Baltic Lakes Using Sentinel-2 MSI and Sentinel-3 OLCI Data Sensors 10.3390/s20030742 Uncategorized Uncategorized Inland waters, including lakes, are one of the key points of the carbon cycle. Using remote sensing data in lake monitoring has advantages in both temporal and spatial coverage over traditional in-situ methods that are time consuming and expensive. In this study, we compared two sensors on different Copernicus satellites: Multispectral Instrument (MSI) on Sentinel-2 and Ocean and Land Color Instrument (OLCI) on Sentinel-3 to validate several processors and methods to derive water quality products with best performing atmospheric correction processor applied. For validation we used in-situ data from 49 sampling points across four different lakes, collected during 2018. Level-2 optical water quality products, such as chlorophyll-a and the total suspended matter concentrations, water transparency, and the absorption coefficient of the colored dissolved organic matter were compared against in-situ data. Along with the water quality products, the optical water types were obtained, because in lakes one-method-to-all approach is not working well due to the optical complexity of the inland waters. The dynamics of the optical water types of the two sensors were generally in agreement. In most cases, the band ratio algorithms for both sensors with optical water type guidance gave the best results. The best algorithms to obtain the Level-2 water quality products were different for MSI and OLCI. MSI always outperformed OLCI, with R2 0.84–0.97 for different water quality products. Deriving the water quality parameters with optical water type classification should be the first step in estimating the ecological status of the lakes with remote sensing. 730066
publications-2600 Peer reviewed articles 2020 R. Iestyn Woolway, Benjamin M. Kraemer, John D. Lenters, Christopher J. Merchant, Catherine M. O’Reilly, Sapna Sharma Global lake responses to climate change Nature Reviews Earth & Environment 10.1038/s43017-020-0067-5 Simulation & Modeling Natural Water Bodies No abstract available 791812