MOLAR
MEASURING AND MODELLING THE DYNAMIC RESPONSE OF REMOTE MOUNTAIN LAKE ECOSYSTEMS TO ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE: A PROGRAMME OF MOUNTAIN LAKE RESEARCH
EC Environment and Climate Research Programme; Contract ENV4-CT95-007
Duration: 1996-2000
General description:
 The arctic and alpine regions of Europe represent the most remote and least disturbed environments in Europe, yet they are threatened by acid deposition, toxic air pollutants and by climate change. The remote lakes are especially sensitive to these threats. Because of this sensitivity, remote mountain lakes are not only vulnerable to environmental change, but they are also excellent sensors of change, and their high quality sediment records can be used to infer the speed, direction and biological impacts of changing air quality and climate.
Specific objectives:
- to assess the physical, chemical and biological seasonal variability of non-polluted remote lakes by intensive sampling and analysis;
- to measure and model the temporal responses of remote mountain lake ecosystems to climate variability on seasonal, inter-annual and decadal time-scales;
- to model the relationship between climate records for mountain weather stations (at study site) with those for lowland stations;
- to establish the relationships between the primary biological constituents of mountain lake ecosystems that form the most important groups in sediment cores i.e. diatoms, chrysophytes, cladocerans and chironomids, and measured environmental summary variables;
- to compare the sediment record at study site with instrumental records of temperature and precipitation, to calibrate and validate models and run the models using alternative scenarios for future climate;
- to development of a high quality environmental database on remote mountain lake ecosystems in Europe and to disseminate results widely to enhance public awareness, environmental education and environmental decision making.
Project partners:
Co-ordinator: Simon Patrick, University College London (UK).
Partners:
- University of Helsinki (Finland)
-
University of Edinburgh (UK)
- Norwegian Water Research Institute , Oslo (Norway)
-
University of Innsbruck (Austria)
- Institute of Limnology , Mondsee (Austria)
- University of Barcelona (Spain)
- University of Granada (Spain)
- University of Bordeaux , Arcachon (France)
- Consejo Superior De Investigaciones Cientificas , Barcelona (Spain)
- University of Bergen (Norway)
- Instituto Italiano di Idrobiologia , Pallanza (Italy)
- University of Liverpool (UK)
- Swiss Federal Institute for Environmental Science & Technology , Dübendorf (Switzerland)
- University of Zurich (Switzerland)
- Charles University , Prague (Czech Republic)
- Hydrobiological Institute , Ceske Budejovice (Czech Republic)
- Institute of Zoology , Bratislava (Slovak Republic)
- Institute of Freshwater Biology, Kracow (Poland)
- National Institute of Biology , Ljubljana (Slovenia)
- Kola Science Centre , Apatite (Russia)
Finnish research team:
|
