Final conference of the EU research project MARS

»Managing multiple stress for multiple benefits in aquatic ecosystems«

15. - 18. January 2018, Brussels, Belgium

The EU FP7 MARS Project – “Managing multiple stress for multiple benefits in aquatic ecosystems” – celebrated its final conference in Brussels last month. On the 16 and 17 January 2018, around 150 water scientists, managers and policy-makers convened in the time-honoured halls of the Museum of Natural Sciences, Brussels.

The event concluded four years of in-depth research by MARS scientists on multi-stressor effects on European surface and ground waters, highlighting the implications for Water Framework Directive (WFD) related management.

Among the array of fascinating results generated by the MARS project, four key messages were reported at the conference.

Message 1: Mitigating pressure-effects on aquatic ecosystems requires an understanding of multi-stressor impacts.

Message 2: Environmental ‘noise’ can obscure evidence from multi-stressor/impact relationships in river basins. Experiments can help unravel multi-stressor interactions and impacts.

Message 3: Multi-stressor interactions are common in rivers and lakes across Europe and need to be considered in River Basin Management. Interactions are highly context-specific, requiring targeted, localised research to inform management.

Message 4: River Basin Management in Europe will benefit from (more) data-driven analyses, modelling and interpretations which are tailor-made for the river basin to be managed.

Read more about the conference and the key messages on the Freshwater blog