Accelerating the ‘water transition’ (24 March 2023)

Accelerating the 'water transition' (24 March 2023)

This year's UN World Water Day comes under the theme of 'accelerating change to solve the water and sanitation crisis'. Aquatic systems are under growing pressure - in Germany as in the rest of the world. This concerns both water quantities, as experienced in the past 'drought summer', and indirect effects, such as a decline in biodiversity on major rivers. A new web application and innovative molecular biological approaches for surveying biodiversity support those who are embracing this challenge.

Niedrigwasser am Rhein bei Weiler, Rheinland-Pfalz.Source: ollo/iStock/Getty Images

'We are planning to release a web application providing a 6-week hydrological forecast later this year. This will give users the option to generate bespoke forecasts for selected gauging stations on the rivers Rhine and Elbe according to their specific information needs,' said BfG scientist Dennis Meissner, who works to enhance methods and mathematical models for water level and discharge forecasts.

So far, the 6-week forecast has been available in the form of PDF documents. The web application, in contrast, will enable users to show or hide specific discharge parameters and to display how likely river levels are to fall below user-defined limits. 'The application is currently in test operations. Initial feedback shows that the new functions create real added value for users of the federal waterways,' explained Mr Meissner, a trained civil engineer and hydrologist.

It seems that BfG's new service offer comes just in time: According to Germany's Meteorological Service, the Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD), the fading winter was the 12th in a row in which temperatures were too high. Besides being too warm, winter weather was also too dry in some regions. 'For the rest of the year, river levels on the Rhine will depend heavily on precipitation in the coming months because snow volumes in the Alps are below average, and their melt water is an important factor to sustain discharges in the Rhine over the summer,' Dennis Meissner added.

In addition to short- and medium-range forecasts, political decision-makers, (logistics) companies and water management authorities also rely on robust projections covering the entire rest of the 21st century. Offers of this kind include the climate advisory service 'DAS Core Service', which is co-led by BfG, and the 'WS climate portal' (both in German only). These services provide a diverse range of scenarios, data and expert opinions for all those who need to make long-term (investment) decisions in a context of adaptation to climate change.

Monitoring the loss of biodiversity through molecular biology approaches

Climate change not only impacts river levels; it also affects aquatic ecosystems. Moreover, changes in the water body structures, inputs of pollutants and nutrients and the import and immigration of invasive neobiota also contribute to the decline in biodiversity. Measures to assess the ecological status of a river, for example under the EU Water Framework Directive, include the identification of species living in its water. Those biological assessments have traditionally been very laborious and expensive; and morphological analysis is a complex task reserved to experts with a thorough knowledge of the different species.

The BIO-eDNA project is an example of how to use state-of-the-art molecular biological approaches to survey biodiversity and assess the ecological status of the federal waterways. One of the aspects behind is that each organism leaves tiny traces of its genetic material in the environment. This is true for both aquatic organisms and wildlife on land. Taking advantage of this fact, BfG's experts and their collaborative partners use fragments of genetic material in water samples to identify, by means of bioinformatic approaches, which fish, mussel, crustacean and algae species are prevalent in a body of water, for example. Molecular biology sampling within this project has so far been conducted on the Rhine, Elbe, Moselle and Lahn rivers. The project will complete in autumn this year. Afterwards, concepts will be developed as a tool for public authorities to implement this approach as part of their up-to-date biodiversity monitoring and ecological water management activities.

Leading the way in terms of hydrological expertise

'Sound aquatic systems are a vital resource and offer diverse living spaces and economic areas,' said BfG's Director-General Dr Birgit Esser. Growing inputs of trace substances into waters, climate change and the loss of biodiversity are among a multitude of urgent challenges affecting our waters. 'In light of the UN's call to accelerate efforts to solve the water crisis, our applied advice and research activities are more relevant than ever,' Dr Esser added.

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