Klement Tockner
Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology & Inland Fisheries (IGB) www.igb-berlin.de Freshwaters: tiny extent – biodiversity hotspots Area Fish species Freshwaters 0.8% Freshwater Oceans 40% 67% Land 33% Oceans 60% European vertebrates extinct since 1700
Terrestrial Prolagus sardus about 1800 Haematopus meadewaldoi about 1940
Freshwater Eudontomyzon sp. migratory Romanogobio antipai Alburnus danubicus Gasterosteus crenobiontus Coregonus oxyrinchus Coregonus bezola Coregonus fera Coregonus hiemalis Coregonus restrictus Coregonus gutturosus Salmo schiefermuelleri Salvelinus neocomensis Salvelinus profundus Marine: Pinguinus impennis 1852 ...... more BIOFRESH: Mission and key goals
Improve capacity to protect and manage freshwater biodiversity in the face of global change – Build a freshwater biodiversity information platform (incl. data portal, atlas, database: data.freshwaterbiodiversity.eu)
– Predict responses to multiple stressors (global, European and catchment scale)
– Improve awareness on freshwater biodiversity conservation by disseminating results through scientific publications and other means (biofreshblog.com, policy briefs)
Contact: www.freshwaterbiodiversity.eu Co-ordination: [email protected]
5 Freshwater Biodiversity Platform
6 Global Freshwater Biodiversity Atlas
7 Key Biodiversity Areas (KBA) for all European freshwater fishes, molluscs, odonata and plants Locations of FW KBAs Gaps in current protection European Globally, flood plains cover about 2% of flood plains the continental surface but provide
more than 25% of its services (based on Global (Tockner & Stanford, 2002) Inundation Map, GLIN) (Fluet-Chouinard et al. submitted) Floodplain area Human Total GDP 28 River basins (km² X 1000) population (Billion US $) (Millions) Volga 84.8 9.5 65.7 Danube 29.6 2.8 41.1 Dnieper 78.6 7.0 19.9 Don 19.8 2.1 10.6 Northern Dvina 11.7 0.2 1.4 Neva 87.2 0.9 19.2 Ural 2.8 0.1 0.6 Kura 8.5 0.6 1.7 Vistula 11.8 1.4 11.7 Rhine 11.9 9.1 33.5 Elbe 10.8 3.0 10.2 Oder 5.4 0.7 8.4 Flood plains: Loire 10.3 2.1 72.7 Duero 7.6 0.9 24.2 Coupled social- Rhone 6.1 1.4 52.8 Nemunas 4.2 0.3 2.6 ecological systems Ebro 4.5 1.1 29.4 Daugava 4.4 0.7 1.9 Seine 15.1 11.1 395.3 Mezen 3.2 0 0,0 Dnister 2.5 0.3 0.5 Po 13.1 2.4 77.7 Tajo 4.3 1.0 26.6 Guadiana 8.2 0.4 10.6 Narva 9.3 0.3 26.9 Guadalquivir 13.4 1.9 53.0 Onega 3.1 0.04 0.03 Garonne 0.9 0.3 9.1 TOTAL 473.1 61.6 998.3 Combined use of natural resources (i.e. ecosystem services) & manufactured wealth
From: Ken Lubinski www.riversociety.org Managing flood plains as coupled social- ecological systems
Floodplain Health Index
Ecosystem Health Human Wealth
Ecological Hydrogeo- Chemical Economic Social Cultural state morphic state state wealth wealth wealth
Shoreline Inundation Succession Provisioning Supporting Cultural length area X days processes services services services
(K. Tockner, unpubl.) (Foto: James V. Ward, Oregon) Societal importance of inland fisheries in Germany Recreational fisheries Inland fisheries
> 400,000 ha 250,000 ha 2.6 – 4.1 million (5%)
Harvest: 45,000 tons Harvest: 3,500 tons
6.4 billion € 11.7 million € 52,000 jobs 747 companies
Data: Robert Arlinghaus (IGB) Integrated River-Floodplain Überschrift Management? Subline
Habitat Directive
Water Framework Directive
Oder River (D): Recent island formation Ecosystems arranged along a gradient of “domestication” Domestication means that “ecosystems have been optimized for few services that provide major short-term economic benefit to humans, yet concurrently causing unforeseen changes in other ecosystem attributes” (nach: Kareiva et al. 2007. Science; Tockner et al. 2011. Ecohydrology & Hydrobiology) Natural Modified Channelized Artificial
(Fotos: Rivers of Europe, Elsevier/Academic Press, 2009) The Ecosystem Service Dilemma
Changes in primary production as a consequence of biodiversity loss (Hooper et al. 2012) Global boom in hydropower production (present capacity: ~980 GW, future capacity: ~1700 GW)
under construction (17%) planned (83%) Freshwater megafauna richness Some lessons from BIOFRESH
Mobilization of existing data and willingness to share data
Focus on species presence/absence data of well-known taxonomic groups (e.g., who cares about parasites?)
Limited availability of long-term data
Key challenge to forecast future biodiversity, as well as their evolutionary, ecological, and economic consequences
Priorization in freshwater conservation/management
Some concluding remarks
Meta-ecosystems: Quantifying ecosystem diversity, properties, and traits (e.g. services)
Coupled social-ecological systems: Integrating natural health/wealth with constructed wealth
Re-thinking conservation and management strategies: reference- based strategies, human-outside-nature approaches, synergies among different users for water
Setting priorities: e.g., identify areas where no maintenance work is required Thank you for your attention!
BioFresh: Biodiversity of Freshwater Ecosystems (www.freshwaterbiodiversity.eu) REFRESH: Adaptive strategies to mitigate the impacts of climate change on European freshwater ecosystems (www.refresh.ucl.ac.uk) SMART: Science for the Management of Rivers and Tidal Systems (www.riverscience.eu) REFORM: Restoring rivers for effective catchment management (www.reformrivers.eu) IGB: Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (www.igb-berlin.de)