LTLS-FE Freshwater Ecosystems

Analysis and future scenarios of long-term and large-scale freshwater quality and impacts

Historically, rivers across the United Kingdom have been subjected to a range of pressures arising from the input of chemicals and by-products, such as domestic wastewater, acid rain, nutrients and pesticides applied to soils, and other products such as medicines.

While some of these pressures have eased over recent decades, others (for example pesticides and nutrients) remain and may be increasing. In addition to these pressures, climate change is also expected to impact on the quality and biodiversity of UK rivers. For example, by changing the amount of water available in rivers to dilute chemicals; by making storms and floods more or less frequent and by changing the volume of chemicals washed into rivers from land. Climate change could also influence freshwater biodiversity, for example, by increasing the exposure of organisms to toxic chemicals during storms or increasing the chance of rivers being invaded by non native species.

The £1.6 million LTLS-FE project will develop a model to make predictions about future chemical inputs, river quality and river biodiversity. Future scenarios will be based on a range of possible changes in society and climate.

By doing this, they aim to provide a range of UK-wide ‘projections’  river quality and biodiversity in the future which will help policy-makers and scientists to understand the main factors controlling the quality and health of rivers. This will help them to develop plans for adaptation, mitigation and detection of risks associated with future changes in river quality.

Data and models will be made available to everyone at the end of the project to provide other researchers with the possibility to add new chemicals as they emerge or apply the model to other parts of the world.

This will be the first project to quantify the future impact of climate and  socioeconomic change on freshwater biodiversity across the UK.

The quality and health of UK rivers are of great interest to many groups such as the general public who rely on waters for recreation such as swimming and angling, to the regulators who are tasked with improving and then maintaining water quality, and to water companies who partly rely on rivers for drinking water supplies.

Led by Dr Victoria Bell and Dr Stephen Lofts, UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, with partners Rothamsted Research, British Geological Survey and Cardiff University.

 

Project website