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HALARM: High Altitude Lakes in the Alps: water Resources and
biodiversity hotspots in the Mountains
Priority: 3 (Environment and risk prevention)
Keywords: Biodiversity, climate change, natural resource management, pollution (water),
water management
Contact details:
Contact person: Michela Rogora
Organisation: CNR Institute of Ecosystem Study, Verbania Pallanza, Italy
Type of organisation: Technological and scientific research center
email: [email protected]
Short description
High-altitude lakes of the Alpine regions are among the most sensitive aquatic ecosystems to
air pollution and climate change. Hence they can then be used as early-warning sites to study
the effect of anthropogenic stressors. The Alpine lakes also serve as multifunctional tools in the
regulation of the water balance and may represent a secondary source of pollution to
ecosystems at lower altitudes. In the HALARM project the possible release of pollutants from
debris forms and melting glaciers as a consequence of climate change will be evaluated,
considering its effects on water quality and its usage both in the Alps and in the lowlands. The
project will gather extensive chemical and biological data for medium and high-altitude lakes in
the Alps, with the ultimate goal to evaluate the ecological status and biodiversity of these
sensitive environments. The outputs of the project will form a basis to enable target-oriented
planning in conservation issues and to evaluate success and performance of tailor-made
measures in the context of water management and climate change mitigation strategies.
Main Objectives
The overall objective of the HALARM project is to improve the state of knowledge as regards
water quality and ecological status of high altitude lakes in the Alps. The project will enhance
transnational exchange and cooperation regarding water quality issues and contribute to fill-in
the gaps on high-altitude lakes knowledge, both as water resources and biodiversity hotspots,
being these lakes not covered so far by national monitoring programmes and legislation. To
this aim, a network of institutions operating at different levels (policy, research, water
management) will be created, to develop a joint strategy for the management and sustainable
use of water resources represented by Alpine Lakes. The project will provide an evaluation of
already put in place mitigation strategies of climate change and other anthropogenic stressors
on these sensitive and high-value water resources, in order to provide good governance
practice to regional and national authorities as a guidance in protection, conservation and
water exploitation related issues.
Envisaged outcomes
The project results will provide:
 an assessment of water quality (chemical status) of high altitude lakes in the Alps, as
regards both macro-elements (nutrients) and micropollutants (organics and heavy metals);
 an evaluation of the ecological status of high altitude lakes in the Alpine region, trough
extensive collection of biological data and in-depth studies at selected key sites, following
provisions of the EU legislation (WFD);
 a network of long-term study sites in the Alps, to monitor surface water and ecology of
high altitude lakes as early warning systems of global change (deposition of pollutants and
climate);
 an assessment of the possible counteracting effects of climate change and water
exploitation (e.g. energy production, recreational use) on Alpine lakes;
 an evaluation of adaptation strategies and mitigation tools already put in place with
regards to climate change impacts on high altitude lakes chemical and biological status.
Background
The Alps are widely known as the “water tower” or “water castle” of Europe. Indeed they
supply a disproportionate amount of water of the overall discharge in the different catchments.
According to temperature measurements during the last century, the warming in the Alps
exceeded 1,5 °C, which is more than twice the global warming average. As a consequence, the
key environmental pressures such as changes in temperature (affecting snow cover, snow
pack and biodiversity) and changes in precipitation patterns (possibly with extreme weather
events such as droughts and floods) might have a severe impact on both water quantity and
quality of the Alps and the surrounding areas. The discharge from mountain-dominated
territories in terms of timing, volume, variability and quality will influence run-off
characteristics in the lowlands as well.
The Alpine lakes may possibly acquire increasing importance for water management in the
future, because they serve as multifunctional tools in the regulation of the water balance and
because they may represent a secondary source of pollution to ecosystems at lower altitudes,
with important implications for water quality and usage. In particular ecosystems at high
altitude can be considered a "sink" for micropollutants (heavy metals, xenobiotics) and
nutrients that may be released by the glaciers because of global warming.
Because of their physiographic, morphometric, hydrological and edaphic characteristics, highaltitude lakes of the Alpine regions are among the most sensitive aquatic ecosystems to air
pollution and climate change. They can then be used as early-warning sites to study the effect
of anthropogenic stressors, either through extensive surveys of water chemistry or biological
populations.
Monitoring programmes are a fundamental tool in the management of water resources since
the measurement of quality and quantity parameters provides a sound basis to enable targetoriented planning and the control of success and the performance of tailor-made measures and
programmes in the course of water management.
Appropriate programmes for monitoring water quality and the assessment of the status of
waters have been in place in all the Alpine countries since 2007, based on the provisions of the
EU Water Framework Directive (WFD). Concerning lakes, biological quality elements,
hydromorphological quality elements, general physical-chemical quality elements and other
pollutants like priority list substances, for instance, are monitored periodically at WFD relevant
sites, i.e. those exceeding 50 ha as surface area. However, a question that still needs further
assessment is the adequate coverage of higher Alpine regions within the national monitoring
programmes. Most of the lakes in the Alpine region, especially at medium and high altitude,
being not WFD-relevant, are not subject to any monitoring programmes by the member
States. Long-term data series for waters in such areas in particular could provide valuable
information for further research activities. This applies especially to ongoing research on
climate change where gathering additional data would provide an enhanced basis for the
evaluation of climate warming adaptation strategies.
Project activities will be organised into two main Work-Packages (WP):
WP1 –Water quality assessment for high altitude lakes in the Alps: chemical status
and micropollutants with respect to local sources and long-range transport
As a consequence of the long-range transport of pollutants and their precipitation and
condensation at low temperature, remote environments such as high mountain lakes may have
high concentrations of toxic compounds (heavy metals, organic pollutants) in water, sediment
and biota.
The available data on climate change in the Alpine region and reports of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) indicate a temperature rise particularly marked in this area:
more than 1 ° C in the period 1980-2003 compared to the reference period 1901-2000. Among
the effects, actual or potential, of this warming, there is he retreat of glaciers and
destabilization of areas containing ice debris in the basin. Glaciers, permafrost and sediment of
high altitude lakes are traps for pollutants transported in the atmosphere. The accumulation of
contaminants in glaciers and their release as a consequence of glacier melting appear to be a
significant risk for water resources in the lowlands. Furthermore, many alpine lakes are used
for hydroelectric purposes and are subject to periodic operations where sediment is moved into
rivers emissaries. The sediments are the preferential accumulation compartment of many POPs
and metals and play an important role in the biogeochemical cycle of nitrogen.
Previous studies on mountain lakes in the framework of EU projects also showed high levels of
nitrate in lake water, mainly on the southern slope of the Alps. Nitrogen levels of alpine lakes
appeared to be high in comparison with those of other remote regions of the globe, such as
Himalaya, Patagonia and the Antarctic region. Due to the absence of intensive agricultural
activities as the potential main source of nutrients, the high nitrate levels in Alpine surface
waters must be due to the long-range transport of pollutants form source regions, as the Po
Plain in Northern Italy. As a consequence there is an increasing concern towards the role of
climate change on nitrogen cycle, both in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, in the Alpine
region.
Beside the nitrogen input from atmospheric deposition, a relevant source of nitrogen to lake
waters may be the release form melting snow and ice and from debris such as rock glaciers.
These are potential storage sites for nitrate, heavy metals and organic pollutants, and may
become source of these compounds, with evident effects on the water quality. Heavy metals in
particular may be remobilized from polluted soils or release from melting snow and ice as an
effect of climate change. Both processes are indeed enhanced in a warmer climate, because
temperature affects weathering processes of rocks and soils and leaching of solutes to surface
waters, as well as fluxes from melting glaciers and rock glaciers.
The release of pollutants from debris forms and from melting glaciers is a topic which warrants
further investigations, especially for the southern slope of the Alps, considering its effects on
water quality and its usage both in the Alps and in the lowlands.
WP2 – Ecological status and biodiversity assessment of high-altitude lakes in the
Alps
Biodiversity is the result of the historical (evolutionary) and dynamical (ecological) processes
of each biome and is one of the major concerns of present time conservation efforts. The study
of a simplified but not simple biome such as remote lakes, in all its aspects will be an
important tool for assessing the reliability, resilience and conservation of freshwater
ecosystems, and in maintaining their integrity.
Over the past 30 years, freshwater species have declined faster compared to terrestrial or
marine species. Unfortunately, growing evidence indicate that this trend is likely to persist in
the future. On one hand, freshwater ecosystems will probably further suffer from invasive
species and land use changes. On the other hand, freshwater biota is likely to be impacted by
the predicted reduction in water availability driven by increase water consumption for human
uses and indirectly related to global climate change. In order to promote the efficient
management of freshwater biodiversity and eventually inverse its decline, there is an urgent
need to strengthen research activities on conservation, characterization, and development of
biodiversity to provide solid estimations of species losses under plausible climatic change and
water use scenario.
Glaciers, and lakes and streams fed by them represent our last resource of freshwater for the
future, and for this reason more attention should be paid by scientific community but also by
public administration to such ecosystems. Freshwater biota is typically represented by
zooplanktonic and benthic fauna (macroinvertebrates), and by macrophytes adapted to
extreme physical and chemical environments such as those found at high altitude. Alpine
aquatic ecosystems, hosting zoobenthic communities simplified in structure and function,
exhibit high resilience and may thus be used as early warning systems. The air temperature
increase and the changing of the precipitation patterns are causing glacier retreat and altering
the thermal and hydrological regime of lakes, rivers and streams. This sounds as one of the
cause of potential biodiversity loss at local and global level in the main glacialized regions of
the world, where cold-stenothermal invertebrate fauna is threatened by extinction.
Future climate shifts, mainly in temperature, may indeed induce strong variability in
community composition. This will have a direct influence on the existing species and their
tolerances, with losses of less tolerant and scarcer species and introductions of more lowland
species..
To counteract this trend, collection of data on biodiversity in remote areas are needed, both to
get knowledge on the present level of biological diversity and to drive efforts and strategies in
protection/conservation issues. This is particularly important for peculiar habitats such as high
altitude lakes in the Alps, hosting species adapted to extreme environmental conditions as
regards physico-chemical, edaphic and climatological aspects.
Management of protected areas and conservation plans cannot disregard aquatic ecosystems
and their knowledge, being water and lakes in particular a relevant part of the landscape as
weel as hotspots of biodiversity. Unfortunately, the status of present knowledge of Alpine lakes
biological communities is fragmentary and limited to a few case-studies in restricted areas of
the Alps. Furthermore the present state of the art is made of too short data-set, which do not
allow any forecast under future climate scenarios. There is a need to strengthen efforts for a
better knowledge of these environments, both to target conservation strategies and to
evaluate the efficiency of mitigation tools against climate and other drivers of change.
Within the project, two levels of study sites will be identified for each area:

reference sites, or level 1: a large number of lakes, selected to be representative of the
main characteristics of each area (for geographical aspects, meteorological features, land cover
etc.); at these sites basic data on chemistry (macro-elements, nutrients, heavy metals in lake
water) and biota (macrophyte and zoobenthic communities) will be collected, in order to
provide a survey of chemical and biological characteristics of Alpine lakes in each area;

key-sites, or level 2: a limited number of sites, covering an altitudinal gradient in each
area, possibly with previous data available. At these sites in-depth studies on organic pollutants
and heavy metals in sediment and biota will be performed, and biodiversity will be assessed in
details trough the determination at a species level of the main biological communities.
The WFD provisions will be assumed for level 1 activities, being this instrument the EU
reference for water quality and ecological status definition. Level 1 survey, performed with
standardised criteria and methods, will allow to develop an extended map of water quality on
the whole Alpine chain, especially for those water bodies which are not subject to monitoring
programmes by national institutions. Information provided by level 1 survey (water chemistry
and biology) will be coupled with lake and catchment characteristics, in order to provide an
atlas of Alpine lake ecosystems. Final products of this phase will be a geo-referenced database
and a webgis. Information will be made available, at different access levels, to both stakeholders, end-users and the general public.
Detailed investigation on micropollutant contamination will be performed on a subgroup of
sites (level 2), previously identified on the basis of already available data on lake and
catchment characteristics and on possible contamination sources, also as atmospheric inputs.
The results of the analyses will allow an evaluation of the transfer of contaminants from water
to sediment and trough the food web by using aquatic organisms (fishes and
macroinvertebrates) as bioaccumulators. The aim of these activities will be to assess the
effects of climate warming on the release of pollutants to alpine waters and evaluate the role
of high altitude ecosystems as secondary pollutant sources to lowland water bodies.
At the same sites in-depth biological investigations will be performed, collecting macrophytes,
phytoplankton, zooplankton and macrozoobenthos. Freshwater biota will be analyzed for
species composition and zoogeographical distribution. The aim of these activities is to provide
a comprehensive panorama of the biological communities living at high altitude; to evaluate
their distribution in relation to environmental factors; to create a list of tolerant/sensitive
species as regard human impacts and climatic change.
Selected lakes for level 2 investigations will also constitute a preliminary network of sites for
long-term studies, to be proposed for the inclusion in the LTER Europe network (European
Long-Term Ecosystem Research Network).
Partners found (up to July 2010):
CNR Institute of Ecosystem Study, Verbania Pallanza (VB), Italy
ARPA Valle d’Aosta, Italy
Istituto Agrario S. Michele all’Adige - Fondazione Edmund Mach, S. Michele all’Adige (TN), Italy
Parco Nazionale Val Grande, Italy
Parco Naturale Alta Valsesia, Italy
University of Innsbruck - Institute of Ecology, Innsbruck, Austria
Partners searched
Public authorities involved in water management issues and biodiversity conservation, Parks,
NGOs interested in , tourism promotion boards