Projects

Defining a safe operating space (SOS) for water resources in a changing climate and society is urgently needed to ensure a sufficient and reliable supply of water of a quality acceptable for human activity and natural ecosystems over the coming decades.

The Panama Canal connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and is an important hotspot for aquatic invasions in the Western Hemisphere. This project intends to understand better fish invasion dynamics in this major canal after its expansion in 2016.

Water-ForCE will bring together experts on water quality and quantity, in policy, research, engineering and service sectors to develop a Roadmap for the water component for the future Copernicus services.

IGB (project lead Thomas Mehner) is part of a consortium that is running a new Horizon 2020 project ‘PONDERFUL’, led by the University of Vic (Spain). The project’s overarching aim is to develop improved methods for maximising the use of ponds and pondscapes in climate change adaptation and mitigation, biodiversity conservation and the delivery of ecosystem services.

In this project, the effect of climate change on the physical processes of lakes will be investigated. Several lakes with a diverse set of boundary conditions (e. g. differing mean depth or different wind exposure) will be instrumented with logger chains. They will measure temperature and oxygen in high resolution and make it possible to resolve changes in physical conditions in response to varying climatic forcing.  In addition to direct measurements, numerical models can be used to reproduce water temperatures in lakes.

We are proud to host a number of researchers (interns, doctoral candidates, Postdocs) that come with their own funding.

The project studies the fisheries exploitation of the Western Baltic Cod taking the perspective of resilience and wants to help push the system towards a more desired state.

Spatio-temporal high-resolution analysis of water-based recreational activities, resulting impacts and conflicts of use, as well as derivation of a socio-ecological management concept.