Do changes in temperature affect EU Water Framework Directive compliant assessment results of central European streams?

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F60076658%3A12520%2F20%3A43902464" target="_blank" >RIV/60076658:12520/20:43902464 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s12302-020-00403-9" target="_blank" >https://doi.org/10.1186/s12302-020-00403-9</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12302-020-00403-9" target="_blank" >10.1186/s12302-020-00403-9</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Do changes in temperature affect EU Water Framework Directive compliant assessment results of central European streams?

Original language description

Background Benthic invertebrate communities are an integral and longstanding component of stream biomonitoring. However, multiple stressors driven by global change threaten benthic invertebrate communities. In particular, climate warming is expected to disrupt freshwater ecosystems. While an increasing number of studies have shown changes in benthic invertebrate community composition in response to climate warming, the effect on stream assessments has rarely been investigated. As several community composition metrics are also used in stream assessments, we predicted that climate warming would worsen stream assessment results. Therefore, we used a comprehensive data set of 2865 benthic invertebrate samples taken between 2000 and 2014 from small central European low mountain streams. We examined the effects of changes in temperature on common community and stream assessment metrics. We used 31 metrics covering composition, richness, tolerance and function of communities, of which many are used in various stream assessment schemes. Results Against our expectations, we identified a decreasing air temperature trend of - 0.18 degrees C over 15 years. This trend was accompanied by significant changes in community composition, for example, increases in species richness and decreases in the community temperature index (CTI). Further, we identified slight concomitant improvements of various globally used stream quality assessment metrics, such as a decreasing saprobic index and an increasing BMWP. Conclusions While temperature increased by + 0.9 degrees C during the past 30 years (1985-2014), our 15-year study period (2000-2014) showed a decrease by - 0.18 degrees C. Therefore, we regard the concomitant improvement in several assessment metrics as a recovery from prior increasing temperatures. In turn, we assume that increases in water temperature will lead to opposite effects and therefore cause declining assessment results. Water managers should be aware of this linkage that in turn could provide a chance to mitigate the effects of global warming by, for example, planting trees along the rivers and the removal of artificial barriers to increase current velocity to minimize a warming effect.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

10618 - Ecology

Project

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Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2020

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Environmental Sciences Europe

ISSN

2190-4707

e-ISSN

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Volume of the periodical

32

Issue of the periodical within the volume

1

Country of publishing house

GB - UNITED KINGDOM

Number of pages

13

Pages from-to

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UT code for WoS article

000574743200001

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85091973800