Climate Change and European Water Bodies, a Review of Existing Gaps and Future Research Needs: Findings of the ClimateWater Project.

There is general agreement among scientists that global temperatures are rising and will continue to increase in the future. It is also agreed that human activities are the most important causes of these climatic variations, and that water resources are already suffering and will continue to be greatly impaired as a consequence of these changes. In particular, it is probable that areas with limited water resources will expand and that an increase of global water demand will occur, estimated to be around 35-60% by 2025 as a consequence of population growth and the competing needs of water uses.

Assessing habitat exposure to eutrophication in restored wetlands: model-supported ex-ante approach to rewetting drained mires.

A multi-model-based study was performed in order to unravel valuable fen meadow habitats' possible exposure to eutrophication, which is expected to occur as a result of the re-saturation of degraded peat soils. The framework was tested in a 3000-ha fen-drain system to be restored in the Middle Biebrza Basin (northeast Poland), where the datasets and related models were used to delineate prospective eutrophication hotspots and nutrient transport. A 1-d hydrodynamic model and a 3-d groundwater flow model were applied to constitute the hydrological response of the fen-drain system to the prospective construction and function of weirs and spillways, which are expected to induce the increase of groundwater levels in degraded fens.