Drivers of change and pressures on aquatic ecosystems : guidance on indicators and methods to assess drivers and pressures

The AQUACROSS project, funded under the EU’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme, seeks to improve the management of aquatic ecosystems, thereby supporting the achievement of the EU 2020 Biodiversity Strategy and the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020. According to the structure of the AQUACROSS project, Work Package (WP) 4 builds on and forms part of the Assessment Framework (AF) developed in WP3. Task 4.1 builds the basis for the analysis of drivers of change and pressures on aquatic ecosystems (WP4) and should provide guidance for the analyses performed within the case studies. Hence, this Deliverable (D4.1) aims at the AQUCROSS consortia partners, in order to help guide their work going forward under Task 4.2. Within this deliverable, the following objectives are addressed: Conceptualise how drivers, pressures and environmental states are interwoven across the aquatic realms and in relation to complex social-ecological systems Define the role of drivers that directly or indirectly act on different levels, the interacting effects of these drivers, related human activities and the resulting pressures along the freshwater-marine continuum Deepen the understanding of the Driver-Pressure-State (D-P-S) part of the AF by exploring the existing qualitative and quantitative approaches of D-P-S assessment systems Identify the most suitable set of pressure-sensitive indicators, including indicators for ecosystem state Propose integrative indicators especially for newly emerging drivers and pressures based on currently used cost-effective indicator