PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
Freshwater ecosystems host a wide range of species. Groundwater, which makes up more than 70% of the Earth's freshwater, plays a crucial role in the maintenance of most surface environments and has profound implications for human well-being and socio-economic development. Groundwater environments are also among the most important corridors, connecting different kinds of other freshwater environments, including lakes, rivers, springs and wetlands. In the EU, these ecosystems and their biodiversity are highly threatened. Consequently, the Groundwater Daughter Directive (2006/118/EC) underlines the importance of protective measures for groundwater ecosystems in its introductory section, as well as in further notes. However, awareness of groundwater as a biological habitat has lagged behind awareness of its importance as a drinking water reservoir. As a consequence, comprehensive indicator systems have yet to be devised for the evaluation of biodiversity levels and losses in groundwater-dependent ecosystems.
OBJECTIVES
The AQUALIFE project aimed to develop and disseminate the AQUALIFE Package, an innovative and user-friendly work package of biodiversity indicators that will be easily and widely used for assessing the status of biodiversity and losses in groundwater-dependent ecosystems (GDEs). The AQUALIFE Package fills an identified gap, as no similar indicator systems currently exist.
Specifically, the project aimed to:
RESULTS
The AQUALIFE project developed and disseminated an innovative and user-friendly working package of biodiversity indicators, the AQUALIFE Package. It can be easily and widely used for assessing biodiversity status and loss in groundwater-dependent ecosystems, through the support of dedicated software (and relevant guidance) freely available online. The key outputs were tested and validated before the end of the project not only in Italy, but also in France and Slovenia, showing the very high degree of transferability of this tool to other environmental types and other countries.
Funded under the exception for LIFE funding, which allows research projects for the development of innovative indicators of biodiversity, the project did not demonstrate best practice or carry out concrete conservation actions. Directly visible and measurable impacts on conservation are therefore not available. Some impact will be visible once the package will be used and the results applied in relation to the management of the relevant ecosystems. In particular, the AQUALIFE Package may facilitate a better understanding of the problems connected to biodiversity in ground water ecosystems. This knowledge tool may help competent authorities to implement conservation measures that will have a positive impact on nature and biodiversity in general.
The AQUALIFE package could potentially be applied to an early warning system on the quality of freshwater environments. The package and the relevant software and its guidance are freely available online, while the University of L'Aquila will continue to provide assistance to all interested institutions. Some networking activities are already in place and collaborations are being planned e.g. with the University of Milan and other LIFE projects. The After-LIFE plan foresees a continuation of these activities and contains a budget for doing so.
Further information on the project can be found in the project's layman report and After-After-LIFE Communication Plan (see "Read more" section).
