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On 8 May 2023, around 2,000 juvenile fish will be stocked near Stützkow. The original plan was to release the fish in the autumn of 2022, but this was not possible due to the man-made environmental disaster on the river. Now, the partners involved are making a new attempt and sending a signal for better protection of our river habitats. 

A chronicle of an environmental disaster on the River Oder: Images of huge quantities of dead fish – covering all species and sizes – shocked the German, Polish and international public in August 2022. IGB researchers set about tracking down the causes. IGB was the first institution to determine that the disaster was definitely man-made.

Ensuring clean water supply for all people and conserving life below water are among the global SDGs. However, almost all of the Earth's waters are impacted, if not clearly altered, by human use. That is why many initiatives are currently being taken to restore peatlands, flowing waters and their floodplains, lakes and other stagnant waters. Researchers at IGB are exploring how best to go about this.

Imagine being able to access a virtual platform that not only provides access to data from a wide range of aquatic disciplines but also enables smooth processing and analysis of the data. This vision could soon become a reality through the EU project AquaINFRA, where IGB is an important contributor.

IGB researcher Lynn Govaert has been awarded funding under the Emmy Noether Programme. Her project will focus on the question whether we can predict species and community responses to environmental change based on the strength of the key interacting evolutionary and ecological processes.

Not only forests and dry pastures can burn, fires can also start in peatlands. However, due to the soil moisture and lacking oxygen in the soil, the land does not burn ablaze, but smoulders. These smouldering fires can release considerable greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, because peatland soils store much more carbon than other soils and also large amounts of nutrients. Researchers led by the University of Rostock with IGB have now shown that smoldering fires in peatlands therefore also involve a high risk of polluting adjacent freshwaters or groundwater.

Mass developments of cyanobacteria, so-called blue-green algae blooms, repeatedly threaten the quality of water bodies and drinking water resources worldwide. Cyanobacteria are considered to be heat-loving, and massive algal blooms are reported mainly in summer, when monitoring is particularly close. Now, an international research network involving IGB has shown that cyanobacterial blooms can also occur at colder temperatures - even under ice. If the algal blooms go unnoticed, there are risks to drinking water production.

As an international, science-based organisation, GEO AquaWatch is dedicated to the global observation of freshwater and marine systems. Since 2022, the organisation has been having a new node at IGB to drive the calibration and validation of satellite data.