Lake Intercalibration: status of ongoing work Sandra Poikane Joint Research Centre Institute for Environment and Sustainability

Outline  What is new ? –Overall structure –Benthic fauna –Fish –Phytoplankton and macrophytes  Summary

Lake IC - what's new ?  BQE groups established  Started work Benthic invertebrates and Fish fauna  Started East Cont GIG

GIG / BQE groups ALPCBMEDNOREASTNOR Phytoplankton Macrophytes Benthic invertebrates Fish fauna

GIG / BQE groups ALPCBMEDNOREASTNOR G.Wolfram AT K.Pall AT A. Solimini JRC, IT G.Phillips UK J.Ortiz- Casas ES n.a. for reservoirs To be decided 30 Sept – 1 Oct meeting R.Portielje NL J. Boehmer DE A. Lyche Solheim NO S. Hellsten FI L. Sandin SE G. Borics HU ? B. Csanyi HU G.Wolfram AT ALP GIG ? CB GIG M. van den Berg (NL) MED GIG J. Ortiz- Casas ES N GIG A. Pilke FI EC GIG O. Mihail RO PHYTO A. Lyche Solheim NO MACROPHYTES G.Phillips UK BENTHIC J. Boehmer DE FISH N Jepsen JRC C. Argillier FR n.a. for reservoirs

Work can be divided in 2 flows:  New work – benthic fauna and fish fauna (most active work)  Old results – phytoplankton and macrophytes (currently relax)

Benthic fauna - 4 groups

Benthic invertebrates 4 groups  Leader Juergen Boehmer (DE)  N GIG – L. Sandin (SE)  ALP GIG – A. Solimni (JRC, IT)  CB GIG – J. Boehmer (DE)  EC GIG – B. Csanyi (HU) ?

ALP GIG – benthic fauna  5 MS – AT, IT, FR, SI, DE  All (except AT) have assessment methods, good data availability  Agreement on: –Criteria for compliance of national systems –Definition of refcond –Lake types and pressures General degradation+littoral Eutrophication + profundal –Minimum data requirement and data quality criteria

ALP GIG  Data collection – Oct-Nov 2008  Pilot exercise 2009 –define the general approach to IC, –typology/pressure analysis, –common metrics test

N GIG – Benthic fauna Acidification  Lot of progress (pre-IC with SE and UK data)  significant delays due to data availability /quality, late delivery of MS methods –SE, UK (only clear water lakes), –NO – developing –IE, FI – no methods

N GIG - Benthic fauna  Plan:  Finalisation of national methdos  Further development of common metrics  Include more biological data  Results 2010

N GIG Eutrophication  Work just started  info on data and methods  Only 2 methods  Different habitats  The first ideas developed

N GIG Eutrophication FISEIEUKNO Profundal Method BQI No method, data Littoral Method ASPT No method, data Data from 2009 CPET (whole lake) datamethod

N GIG Eutrophication The next steps  Finalize typology  Reference criteria  Collect the data  Identify the common metrics  Results 2011

CB GIG – Benthic fauna Work has started  Not all MS have methods, most have data  Focus on different habitats/pressures –eulittoral/general degradation (eutrophication+hydromorphology): Be/Fl, DE, EE, NL –deeper zones / eutrophication: FR –CPET (whole lake) / eutrophication: UK –undecided and no method so far: DK, LT, LV, PL

CB GIG - Benthic fauna Agreements on  Eulittoral zone and “general degradation”  Option 2 or 2/3  other zones and pressures possibly later Working on:  criteria to be used to define reference conditions  criteria to be used to define pressures

CB GIG - Benthic fauna  Collection of data 2009  A set of common intercalibration metrics based on normative definitions, correlations with stressors and most commonly used metrics  Intercalibration exercise 2010/2011  Report 2011

 Work has started in 3 GIGs –Overview of methods/data –Principal decisions –Data collection started  No work in Eastern Continental GIG (so far)  No work in Mediterranean GIG (common position of LM GIG on benthic fauna - not applicable for reservoirs) Benthic fauna - overview

 Benthic fauna leaders meeting planned 5-6 November, Amsterdam  to discuss the progress and comparability between the GIGs

Fish fauna ?

Fish fauna  Start of work and data collection /typology  it was decided to establish a database with information of the lakes where fish data available  At now huge dataset (Cemagref, France) –Climatic, hydromorphological and physico-chemical data –from 2478 lakes in total –1742 of these fulfilled the requirements and have been analyzed  resulted in a division into 3 types of natural lakes and two types of reservoirs

Fish fauna  Fish IC Meeting 30 Sep -1 Oct  Overview –AT, FI, SE, DE, NL - methods –Most – started monitoring –Some – still fish not in  Discussion - how to continue work –GIGs –Develop common European fish metric

PHYTOPLANKTON IC  Phytoplankton IC results just published  Cross-GIG groups established with the aim to facilitate cooperation  Phytoplankton group started the work with discussion papers (IC on full BQE level, combination rules, bloom metrics etc)

Phytoplankton - common issues  Full BQE intercalibration (chlorophyll-a + composition)  Not all MS and GIG have developed/IC composition metrics  Bloom metrics ?

MACROPHYTES  IC results just published, so at this moment no active work going on;  Cross-GIG groups established with the aim to facilitate cooperation  work with discussion papers (phytobenthos, hm pressure)

TYPOLOGY:  Mediterranean GIG is working to find out natural lake types –ES: most of them very small and shallow –PT: no natural lakes –FR: very few natural lakes –IT: some small Sicilian lakes –GR: about 14 natural lakes –CY: 5 natural lakes. –RO: in EC GIG  Eastern Continental GIG has drafted lake typology

The main difficulties  Lack of capacity and resources in several cases  Need for new Guidance –Summarize our experience –Way forward

Expert work  Commitment - depend on higher administration level  ~ 3 groups of countries –Active work (NL, DE, SE, ES, AT, UK) –Participating (in some case only appearing in meetings) –Not showing up at all  Makes work slow and ineffective !  CZ - official statement – no lakes, no IC,  but reservoirs, experts willing to work

Main message  Fish and benthos – work has started  Phyto and macrophytes – waiting for guideleines, new data, WISER  EC GIG – only typology so far  New guidance needed  Problem – assessment methods and involvement of the MS  How to solve it ?

Thank you !