Indicating the status of freshwater ecosystems under changing climatic conditions

akes in warm ecoregions - Adaptation and mitigation

Climate adaptation refers to the ability of a system to adjust to climate change (including climate variability and extremes) to moderate potential damage, to take advantage of opportunities, or to cope with the consequences. The IPCC defines adaptation as the “adjustment in natural or human systems to a new or changing environment.

Adaptation to climate change refers to adjustment in natural or human systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects, which moderates harm or exploits beneficial opportunities. Various types of adaptation can be distinguished, including anticipatory and reactive adaptation, private and public adaptation, and autonomous and planned adaptation. Practical adaptation, mitigation and restoration strategies are urgently required by river basin managers either to adapt to future climate change or to minimise the effects of future change on current or restored situations.

Scores to specific
climate pressure

Climate change
adaptation labels

REFRESH project is focusing on five measures in specific:

• the management of riparian areas to control water temperature by the establishment of woody riparian vegetation along streams and rivers.
• the management of catchment hydrology to maintain flow in streams, water-level in lakes and regular flooding in wetlands.
• the re-creation of riparian floodplains to buffer against extreme precipitation events and changes in hydrodynamics, and to reduce nutrient flows and humic substances to water bodies.
• the management of catchment land-use to reduce diffuse nutrient loading and soil erosion.
• the management of water abstraction from, and effluent discharge to, surface waters.

One of the tasks of REFRESH is to review the effectiveness of adaptation and mitigation measures already being practiced in Europe at different scales: local, sub-catchment, catchment and European scales, specified per climate region (Atlantic, boreal, alpine, continental, and Mediterranean).

In this section a set of 10 adaptation strategies are listed for lakes with a total of 43 adaptation measures, and arranged as a searchable database.

For the full description of the methodology and results see REFRESH Deliverable 1.4 (pdf, 1mb).

For more information see also:
REFRESH Deliverable 1.1 (pdf, 2.3mb) and REFRESH Deliverable 1.5 (pdf, 1mb).

 

Select one or more strategies

Restoration strategies

	increase water storage capacity
	increase water retention capacity
	habitat restoration

Reduction

	nutrient load reduction
	organic load reduction
	reduce direct human interference
	toxic load reduction

Enhancement

	re-oxygenation
	de-salinisation
	improve connectivity