EffectMon

The European Union's Water Framework Directive (WFD) was initiated in 2000 to improve and protect water quality in Europe and prevent further deterioration. The third planning cycle ends in 2027, and more than 90 % of Germany's surface waters still do not meet the WFD objectives. The main causes of the deterioration of aquatic ecosystems are the presence of pollutants, morphological degradation and high nutrient loads. However, current monitoring methods make it difficult to predict whether the poor status of water bodies is due to chemical pollution or morphological degradation.

Furthermore, recent studies have shown that in rivers with a high proportion of treated wastewater, hydromorphological restoration not only does not contribute to improving the ecological status, but that the restored sections also have a higher toxicity than the non-restored reference sections of the same river. Consequently, the implementation of a scientifically sound and targeted monitoring approach is imperative. For this purpose effect-based methods (EBM) are recommended to gain a better insight into the pollutants and mechanisms underlying the observed effects.

Against this background, the EffektMon project aims to apply EBMs at the organismic and sub-organismic level to assess restored streams of different ages. In addition, the ecological status class of the sampling sites is determined by passive monitoring in accordance with the EU WFD. Benthic invertebrates are recorded in accordance with national standards. Plant organisms are also used. These effect-based methods are also carried out at a water body that is very well characterized in terms of water chemistry, the Alb in Karlsruhe is used. The main aim of this project is to clarify whether water pollution or structural deficits are the main causes for the failure to achieve good ecological status.