SSPI-CT-2003-502158
REBECCA
Relationships between ecological and chemical status of surface waters
Specific Targeted Research or Innovation Project
Policy-oriented research
Final activity report
Period covered: from 1.12.2003 to 31.5.2007
Date of preparation: 13.7.2007
Start date of project: 1.12.2003
Duration: 42 months
Seppo Rekolainen
Finnish Environment Institute
Version 01
1. Project execution
REBECCA
Relationships between ecological and chemical status of surface waters
Contract no.: SSPI-CT-2003-502158
The strategic objective of the REBECCA proposal has been to provide relevant scientific support
for the implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD). The two specific aims of the
project are, firstly, to establish links between ecological status of surface waters and physicochemical quality elements and pressures from different sources, and, secondly, to develop and validate tools that member states can use in the process of classification, in the design of their monitoring programs, and in the design of measures in accordance with the requirements of the WFD.
The REBECCA Consortium included 19 contractors:
Finnish Environment Institute
SYKE
Finland
Joint Research Centre
JRC
EC
Norwegian Institute for Water Research
NIVA
Norway
National Environmental Research Institute
NERI
Denmark
DHI Water & Environment
DHI
Denmark
WL | Delft Hydraulics
WL|Delft
The Netherlands
Centre for Ecology and Hydrology
NERC/CEH
The United Kingdom
Centre National du Machinisme Agricole, du Génie Rural, des Eaux et des Forêts
Cemagref
France
Water Research Institute
IRSA
Italy
Swedish Environmental Research Institute
IVL
Sweden
Trinity College Dublin
TCD
Ireland
Slovak Hydrometeorological Institute
SHMI
Slovak Republic
Instituto Nacional de Investigação Agrária e das Pescas
IPIMAR
Portugal
University of Antwerp
UA
Belgium
Danube Delta National Institute
DDNI
Romania
Norwegian Institute for Nature Research
NINA
Norway
Institute for Inland Water Management and Waste Water Treatment
RIZA
The Netherlands
Tallinn Technical University
TTU
Estonia
Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet
SLU
Sweden
The project started with a comprehensive literature review, whose aim was to assess the state-ofthe-art in relation to the project objectives, and, based on the literature view, to analyse the most
important knowledge gaps in this field (deliverables D3, D4 and D6). Based on that information the
other , water category-based work packages (WP3,4 and 5) redefined and detailed their plans. Simultaneously with the literature review, these work packages started surveying and collecting available chemical and biological data for analysing the relationships and assessing the potential ecological thresholds, which could be utilized in boundary setting for different water quality classes.
The REBECCA project collected existing data owned by REBECCA partners but also from data
providers outside the consortium. By contacting external data providers we succeeded to have data
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sets with improved geographical (and also temporal) coverage. The data sets include chemical and
biological data from thousands of sampling sites in European lakes rivers and coastal waters. A big
challenge was to assure the data quality, due to the lack of harmonised sampling and analysing
methods as well as lack of harmonised taxonomic resolution, the data originating from different
countries and institutes/universities was heterogeneous. In spite of a big attempt, data heterogeneity
remained as one source of uncertainty in our results.
These data sets were then used to assess the following issues:
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to investigate the sensitivity of single species, other taxonomic groups, multi-metric indices against different pressures and chemical indicators
to test the response the existing biological indicators (described in earlier literature)
against pressures using the REBECCA data, and adjust these relationships, if necessary
to develop new biological indicators having a better response, and indicators for pressures not referred to in earlier literature
to assess reference conditions (in lakes)
to evaluate, if ecological thresholds (points of no return) can be found across the pressure gradients
to develop new tools to be used in ecological classification
We investigated relationships between the following pressures and biological quality elements:
Phytoplankton
Lakes
Eutrophication
Acidification
Hydromorphology
Toxic pressures
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Macrophytes
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Macroinvertebrates
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Fish
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Rivers
Organic loading
Eutrophication
Acidification
Hydromorphology
Toxic pressures
Coastal waters
Eutrophication
Toxic pressures
Benthic
diatoms
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The results of these analyses are collected in numerous deliverables (D7, D8, D9, D11,
D12,D13,D14,D15,D16,D17 and D20), all available at the project Toolbox (www.rbmtoolbox.net/rebecca >public document store). Based on these deliverables 14 scientific papers are
published and 45 papers have been submitted to scientific journals. In addition to those reports, the
relationships were validated in case studies by Work package 6. validation results are given in deliverables D5 and D18.
Only a few examples of our results are shown below, more comprehensive view can be obtained
from the deliverables (and scientific articles).
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In lakes most promising indicators for eutrophication are taxonomic phytoplankton groups. The
proportion of cyanophytes increase with increasing pressure (see Fig.1, pressure gradient expressed
as chlorophyll a concentration), whilst the proportion of chrysophytes decrease. The proportion of
pinnate diatoms increase earlier compared to cyanophytes, but show a decrease in very eutrophic
lakes. The increase of cyanophytes are not linear, suggesting that at certain pressure level there is a
threshold, above which the undesired consequences increase rapidly, and restoration is probably
more difficult.
Fig. 1. Different phytoplankton groups as a function of chlorophyll a concentration in large clear
water lakes in northern Europe.
A relatively good response for eutrophication in rivers showed the benthic diatoms. They take up
nutrient directly from the water column, they have shorter generation time compared to macrophytes and they are not as dependent on water retention times as phytoplankton. Trophic Diatom
Index (TDI) correlated positively with inorganic nutrient concentrations (see Fig. 2)
Fig. 2. Trophic Diatom Index (TDI) as a function of phosphate, ammonium and nitrate concentration in rivers in several European countries. The blue line is linear regression and red lines represent the 90%ile and 10%ile values.
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Generally the relationships between any pressures and any biological indicators were found to be
weaker in rivers compared to e.g. lakes. This is due to the fact that more often rivers than lakes are
subject to many pressures simultaneously. As a results, when investigating an indicator supposed to
be sensitive to a single pressure, a large amount of variability remained unexplained. This calls for
indicators for combined pressures which were also studied by the REBECCA Work Package for
rivers.
Integrated indicators, in addition to single metrics, were also studies by the Work Package for
Coastal waters. One of the approach used was based on Ecosystem Network Analysis, which is
based on carbon stocks and flows through the biotic food web. Some of the indicators produced by
Ecosystem network Analysis (e.g. Internal Ascendancy, Internal Capacity and Redundancy) were
strongly correlated to pressure indicators, such as total nitrogen concentrations (see Fig. 3). This
indicates that eutrophic systems have less capacity to counteract pressures and thus having a lower
resilience.
Fig. 3. relationship between total nitrogen concentration and Internal Capacity (based on Ecosystem Network Analysis) in Danish coastal waters.
Results of integrated indicator studies show that they may give a good insight to the ecosystem
functioning, and may be helpful for selecting single indicators and thus being valuable supporting
tools for the implementation of the Water Framework Directive. However, for practical tools they
are still premature, and need more research.
Since REBECCA has been a policy support research (supporting the Community water policies,
particularly the implementation of the Water Framework Directive), much attention has been paid
to organise continuous information flow between the project and end-users of its results. At the
Community level the most important link has been between REBECCA and one of the WFD Common Implementation Strategy groups, namely the ECOSTAT working group. REBECCA progress
and results have been presented in every ECOSTAT meeting since autumn 2003 until spring 2007,
usually 2-3 times per year. In addition to that REBECCA scientists have been working together
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ECOSTAT Geographical Intercalibration Groups to provide them information in order to set the
ecological class boundaries for surface waters.
At national level, all REBECCA partners have been providing information for water authorities and
policy makers for planning the ecological classification and developing WFD compliant monitoring
programmes.
REBECCA organised three end-user conferences, first in Italy, second in the Netherlands. The Final
Conference of the REBECCA project was organised in May 2007 in Oslo Norway, with more than
90 participants, of which about 50% were end-users both from European and national level. The
Conference programme was designed to present project results, but also how these results can be
used in practice, in the implementation of the WFD. The abstracts of the Conference were published, and this publication is also the Deliverable D19.
Of scientific point of view REBECCA groups have prepared close to 60 scientific manuscripts
submitted to scientific journals. At the time of writing this report (July 13, 2007) 14 of these papers
have been published.
2. Dissemination and use
The results and new knowledge produced by the REBECCA project has been utilized when implementing the ecological classification of surface waters compliant with the Water Framework Directive. Most useful the results have been, when defining the reference conditions and class boundaries. In addition to the Community level boundary setting protocol, the results have been utilized by
water authorities and policy makers in Member States when planning their ecological classification
systems and monitoring schemes.
All REBECCA results are publicly available through the deliverables downloadable at the project
web-site: www.rbm-toolbox.net/rebecca >public document store.
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