About

An international Biodiversa project

FreshRestore is an international BiodivERsA project where research partners from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Spain have joined forces to better understand how anthropogenic influence affects freshwater systems, and how and where we best can implement nature based solutions to mitigate the detrimental effects on the freshwater ecosystems.

The FreshRestore logo

Main activities

FreshRestore activities will answer four specific questions:

1. How do anthropogenic stressors connect to ecological drivers across different spatial scales from local to European?
2. How do anthropogenic stressors drive population size structure and biomass, and thus the functional ecology of fishes?
3. How do natural and anthropogenic drivers interact to affect lake trophic diversity and functioning?
4. What are the biological and socio-ecological trade-offs for nature-based solutions in face of both local and global stressors?

To achieve this, FreshRestore will structure and integrate statistical models upon existing datasets of biotic and abiotic parameters, fish population structure and ecological functions across large environmental gradients in Fennoscandia. The parameters will, among others, include climate, land and water use as well as restoration and mitigation efforts (e.g., habitat restorations, wetlands, regrowth of forest and buffer zones). An integrative modelling framework will provide valuable insights into how freshwater biodiversity is connected to the environment, how the outcome varies with anthropogenic stressors, and how these stressors can be mitigated to benefit both humans and ecosystems. The model concept will be transferred and tested with case studies in Spain.

Outcomes and expected impacts

FreshRestore will provide a quantification of the functional relationships between relevant units of natural ecological drivers and anthropogenic stressors across spatial scales. This will lead to new knowledge on the effects of environmental drivers and anthropogenic stressors on freshwater biodiversity. FreshRestore will also expand this knowledge with quantifications of how interactions between global and local anthropogenic stressors affect ecological functions which provide important ecosystem services in lakes. Furthermore, the project will identify, quantify and inform on the implementation of cost-effective nature-based solutions targeting local stressors. The outcomes will be interlinked so that the modelling framework provides the basis for an adaptive management process. This will provide a best practice tool-box where researchers and stakeholders (such as environmental agencies and policy makers at national scales, as well as owner and user associations and county admisistrative boards at the local scale) can work in synchrony to implement conservation and restoration actions in freshwater systems.