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LimnoScenES
Developing improved social-ecological scenarios for biodiversity and ecosystem service changes in north temperate freshwater ecosystems over the next half century
Human life depends on the quality and quantity of freshwater, which is why many stakeholders organize themselves for collaborative management regarding this issue. However, successful collaboration is challenged by high uncertainty about impacts of climate change, the interaction between global and local disturbances affecting freshwater biodiversity, and multiple human activities like farming that appear only indirectly related to freshwater. A prominent example from the past is the accumulation of nutrients in freshwaters from overfertilization in agriculture and point pollution - leading to dangerous algae blooms and affecting biodiversity. The challenge for managing freshwaters in the future is to develop adaptive strategies that take into account ecological and social changes and visions, as well as their interaction. Processes of learning and anticipation are of utmost importance to inform actors to guide the resilience of ecosystem service provision.
LimnoScenES aims to support freshwater managers in decision-making through the development of future scenarios of biodiversity and ecosystem services useful to manage freshwaters for improved resilience. It will:
1. Estimate freshwater biodiversity and ecosystem services linked to water quality and develop/analyse modelled scenarios;
2. Create participatory scenarios to enable the visioning of maintenance and improvement of biodiversity and ecosystem services under different climate, societal and socio-economic trajectories focusing on transformative learning;
3. Improve the understanding of long-term dynamics which emerge from complex social-ecological feedbacks through management, use and pollution of freshwater systems.