News

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.

Sophia Kimmig spends half her day coordinating the IGB project "AuBe", which develops insect-friendly lighting concepts. The other half of her day is spent writing about the night. Her book "Lebendige Nacht" (Living Night) has just been published – about the wonders of a world we sleep through.

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.

Freshwater biodiversity is declining at alarming rates. In a large-scale effort, a research team led by IGB and the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin (HU) in cooperation with angling clubs, has conducted whole-lake experiments in 20 lakes to improve ecological conditions. Habitat improvements were the most effective means to enhance fish populations, whereas fish stocking completely failed. The study published in the journal Science emphasizes the importance of restoring habitats and improving natural ecosystem processes, which benefits fish populations, conservation and fisheries.

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.

Routine fishing on 29 November this year was the first large inventory conducted in the middle of the Oder since the man-made environmental disaster that occurred in summer. The result: much fewer fish were caught in total, and species such as the blue bream and the asp, which are important to this ecosystem, were lacking completely. Moreover, water analysis conducted by the researchers shows that the salt concentration is still far too high. There could be a repeat of the disaster when temperatures increase, endangering remaining stocks.

IGB has provided feedback on the government draft of the National Water Strategy, emphasising, among other things, the relevance of aquatic biodiversity and the large practical implementation deficit in water management.

Do fishing clubs take their responsibility seriously at artificial gravel pit lakes? Researchers compared managed and unmanaged natural lakes as well as managed and unmanaged gravel pit lakes in Lower Saxony and Brandenburg. They found that lakes managed by anglers host similar fish species to unmanaged natural lakes.