Establishing Stage–Discharge Rating Curves in Developing Countries: Lake Tana Basin, Ethiopia

A significant constraint in water resource development in developing countries is the lack of accurate river discharge data. Stage–discharge measurements are infrequent, and rating curves are not updated after major storms. Therefore, the objective is to develop accurate stage–discharge rating curves with limited measurements. The Lake Tana basin in the upper reaches of the Blue Nile in the Ethiopian Highlands is typical for the lack of reliable streamflow data in Africa. On average, one stage–discharge measurement per year is available for the 21 gaging stations over 60 years or less. To obtain accurate and unique stage–discharge curves, the discharge was expressed as a function of the water level and a time-dependent offset from zero. The offset was expressed as polynomial functions of time (up to order 4). The rating curve constants and the coefficients for the polynomial were found by minimizing the errors between observed and predicted fluxes for the available stage–discharge data. It resulted in unique rating curves with R2 > 0.85 for the four main rivers. One of the river bottoms of the alluvial channels increased in height by up to 3 m in 60 years. In the upland channels, most offsets changed by less than 50 cm. The unique rating curves that account for temporal riverbed changes can aid civil engineers in the design of reservoirs, water managers in improving reservoir management, programmers in calibration and validation of hydrology models and scientists in ecological research.

The Need to Establish a Long-Term Ecological Research Network in Morocco as a Tool to Monitor Ecosystems Under Climate Change

Several countries are associated with the long-term ecological research (LTER) program, while others are in the process of joining the network. In Morocco, there is an urgent need to be a member of this network because the diversity of challenges associated with the various ecosystems requires multidisciplinary long-term studies. The chapter discusses this need by assessing the environmental vulnerability of Morocco basing on data from the environmental vulnerability index profile. Ecosystem change and vulnerability were investigated at the sites within the LTER program by exploring the criteria of the selected sites. The driving forces, pressures, states, impacts, responses framework would be a useful approach to study and explain the ecological changes of each selected site. The chapter highlights the purpose, significance, the mission, objectives, and the international cooperation of the proposed LTER network called Mo-LTER.

Structure and Functionality of the Mesozooplankton Community in a Coastal Marine Environment: Portofino Marine Protected Area (Liguria)

This research is part of the LTER (Long-Term Ecological Research) project, a network of terrestrial, freshwater, transitional water and marine sites, on which ecological research is conducted on a multi-decade scale. LTER studies ecosystems, their dynamics and evolution, the relationships between biodiversity and ecological functionality, water quality, productivity, the role of resource availability, the effects of pollution and climate change. The research focuses on the study of the variability of zooplankton groups in the Portofino marine protected area, in Punta Faro. The samplings were carried out in the years 2018–2019, and the results were compared with the values of the years 2003–2005, interesting from a meteorological climatic and biological point of view. The plankton community of the Punta Faro system was analyzed by means of a modeling approach to obtain information on the functionality and health status of the system and to verify whether this has undergone any alterations in the last decade. The analyses carried out show a clear difference between the three-year period 2003–2005 and the two-year period 2018–2019, highlighting how environmental changes, such as the increase in temperature, have led to higher costs of system functioning in the last two years. The mesozooplankton community has changed both in terms of abundance of organisms and in terms of organization and functionality.

Timescape: A Simple Spatiotemporal Interpolation Tool

We developed a novel approach in the field of spatiotemporal modelling, based on the spatialisation of time: the Timescape algorithm. It is especially aimed at sparsely distributed datasets in ecological research, whose spatial and temporal variability is strongly entangled. The algorithm is based on the definition of a spatiotemporal distance that incorporates a causality constraint and that is capable of accommodating the seasonal behaviour of the modelled variable as well. The actual modelling is conducted exploiting any established spatial interpolation technique, substituting the ordinary spatial distance with our Timescape distance, thus sorting, from the same input set of observations, those causally related to each estimated value at a given site and time. The notion of causality is expressed topologically and it has to be tuned for each particular case. The Timescape algorithm originates from the field of stable isotopes spatial modelling (isoscapes), but in principle it can be used to model any real scalar random field distribution.

Identify, quantify, act: tackling the unused potential of ecological research

‘Ignorance is expensive’. The statement also applies to ignorance of research inefficiencies that can generate huge waste: 85% of health research, amounting to $170 billion annually, is avoidably wasted. This alarming finding elicited a number of responses that have since reduced the waste in health research. Commonality of research and dissemination practices implies that other scientific fields could also benefit from identifying and quantifying waste and acting to reduce it. Yet, no estimate of research waste is available for other fields. Given that ecological issues interweave most of the UN sustainable development goals, we argue tackling research waste in ecology should be prioritized.Our study leads the way. We estimate components of waste in ecological research, based on a systematic review and a meta-analysis. Shockingly, our results suggest only 11%-18% of conducted ecological research reaches its full informative value. Our duty towards science, environment, organisms we study, and the public dictates that we should urgently act and reduce this considerable yet preventable loss, and harness the full potential of ecological research. We propose to achieve this through actions from researchers, funders, journals, and academic institutions. Finally, we call for other research fields to adopt our framework and derive comparable estimates across scientific disciplines.

Herausforderung Reallabor: Werkstattbericht zur Reallaborforschung

2019 haben das Karlsruher Institut für Technologie, die Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, das Wuppertal Institut für Klima, Umwelt, Energie und das Ecological Research Network das Netzwerk Reallabore der Nachhaltigkeit gegründet. Die Kommunikations- und Kooperationsplattform will zu einer transformativen Nachhaltigkeitsforschung beitragen.

Environmental DNA biomonitoring revealed species diversity of Cnidarian and Poriferan across Jakarta Bay and Seribu Islands National Park

Indonesia, as a country having a unique sea lane known as the Indonesian Archipelagic Sea Lanes (ASLs), has become one of the busiest countries in the world with varied shipping activities. These actions have the ability to facilitate the transmission of species (bio-invasion). Until recently, the number of global introduced species has increased, with negative consequences for environment and the economy. Environmental DNA (eDNA) approaches for detecting the presence of invasive species are currently receiving a lot of interest as a broad approach method in ecological research. As a result, the study used the eDNA technique to compare the quantity and variety of introduced species from the Cnidaria and Porifera Phyla, as well as to characterize their invasiveness status and possible presence in the waters of Jakarta Bay. Based on data from the inside Zone of National Park (ZI) and Outside Zone of National Park (ZO), the biological community composition, richness, and diversity were assessed (ZO). The mBrave workflow generated a total of 14,275 reads from high-throughput sequencing of amplicons from two zones, with 8,917 reads in ZI and 5,358 reads in ZO. Blackfordia virginica , Cordylophora caspia , and Ectopleura crocea were among the imported species included in the invasive category, with E. crocea having the highest abundance and being detected in both zones, with a total of 1300 reads, consisting of 1253 reads in ZI and 47 reads in ZO. Based on the findings, the eDNA methodology can be used as a biomonitoring and conservation method for invasive species.