Human pressures and ecological status of European rivers

Abstract Humans have increased the discharge of pollution, altered water flow regime and modified the morphology of rivers. All these actions have resulted in multiple pressures on freshwater ecosystems, undermining their biodiversity and ecological functioning. The European Union has adopted an amb...

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Autores principales:	B. Grizzetti, A. Pistocchi, C. Liquete, A. Udias, F. Bouraoui, W. van de Bund
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Nature Portfolio 2017
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/8221bfd410e44a22b5f920908adbb2f7
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:8221bfd410e44a22b5f920908adbb2f72021-12-02T11:52:33ZHuman pressures and ecological status of European rivers10.1038/s41598-017-00324-32045-2322https://doaj.org/article/8221bfd410e44a22b5f920908adbb2f72017-03-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-00324-3https://doaj.org/toc/2045-2322Abstract Humans have increased the discharge of pollution, altered water flow regime and modified the morphology of rivers. All these actions have resulted in multiple pressures on freshwater ecosystems, undermining their biodiversity and ecological functioning. The European Union has adopted an ambitious water policy to reduce pressures and achieve a good ecological status for all water bodies. However, assessing multiple pressures on aquatic ecosystems and understanding their combined impact on the ecological status is challenging, especially at the large scale, though crucial to the planning of effective policies. Here, for the first time, we quantify multiple human pressures and their relationship with the ecological status for all European rivers. We considered ecological data collected across Europe and pressures assessed by pan-European models, including pollution, hydrological and hydromorphological alterations. We estimated that in one third of EU’s territory rivers are in good ecological status. We found that better ecological status is associated with the presence of natural areas in floodplains, while urbanisation and nutrient pollution are important predictors of ecological degradation. We explored scenarios of improvement of rivers ecological status for Europe. Our results strengthen the need to halt urban land take, curb nitrogen pollution and maintain and restore nature along rivers.B. GrizzettiA. PistocchiC. LiqueteA. UdiasF. BouraouiW. van de BundNature PortfolioarticleMedicineRScienceQENScientific Reports, Vol 7, Iss 1, Pp 1-11 (2017)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q B. Grizzetti A. Pistocchi C. Liquete A. Udias F. Bouraoui W. van de Bund Human pressures and ecological status of European rivers
description	Abstract Humans have increased the discharge of pollution, altered water flow regime and modified the morphology of rivers. All these actions have resulted in multiple pressures on freshwater ecosystems, undermining their biodiversity and ecological functioning. The European Union has adopted an ambitious water policy to reduce pressures and achieve a good ecological status for all water bodies. However, assessing multiple pressures on aquatic ecosystems and understanding their combined impact on the ecological status is challenging, especially at the large scale, though crucial to the planning of effective policies. Here, for the first time, we quantify multiple human pressures and their relationship with the ecological status for all European rivers. We considered ecological data collected across Europe and pressures assessed by pan-European models, including pollution, hydrological and hydromorphological alterations. We estimated that in one third of EU’s territory rivers are in good ecological status. We found that better ecological status is associated with the presence of natural areas in floodplains, while urbanisation and nutrient pollution are important predictors of ecological degradation. We explored scenarios of improvement of rivers ecological status for Europe. Our results strengthen the need to halt urban land take, curb nitrogen pollution and maintain and restore nature along rivers.
format	article
author	B. Grizzetti A. Pistocchi C. Liquete A. Udias F. Bouraoui W. van de Bund
author_facet	B. Grizzetti A. Pistocchi C. Liquete A. Udias F. Bouraoui W. van de Bund
author_sort	B. Grizzetti
title	Human pressures and ecological status of European rivers
title_short	Human pressures and ecological status of European rivers
title_full	Human pressures and ecological status of European rivers
title_fullStr	Human pressures and ecological status of European rivers
title_full_unstemmed	Human pressures and ecological status of European rivers
title_sort	human pressures and ecological status of european rivers
publisher	Nature Portfolio
publishDate	2017
url	https://doaj.org/article/8221bfd410e44a22b5f920908adbb2f7
work_keys_str_mv	AT bgrizzetti humanpressuresandecologicalstatusofeuropeanrivers AT apistocchi humanpressuresandecologicalstatusofeuropeanrivers AT cliquete humanpressuresandecologicalstatusofeuropeanrivers AT audias humanpressuresandecologicalstatusofeuropeanrivers AT fbouraoui humanpressuresandecologicalstatusofeuropeanrivers AT wvandebund humanpressuresandecologicalstatusofeuropeanrivers
_version_	1718394993663541248

Human pressures and ecological status of European rivers

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