Programs aimed at protection or rehabilitation of aquatic ecosystems are often hampered by the lack of appropriate tools to measure ecosystem health. Ecosystem health is a relatively new field that brings together our biophysical understanding of how natural systems function with societal goals and human values. An important objective of this program is to improve our understanding of patterns and processes in undisturbed aquatic ecosystems and how they might be affected by human activities. This includes studies of the interplay between ecological, chemical and physical processes determining the production, the fate and the impact of anthropogenic chemicals in the aquatic environments. The development and validation of cost-effective, efficient and accurate techniques for the assessment of water quality and aquatic ecosystems health is an essential component of this research.
Core skills: statistics, ecotoxicology, numerical and spatial modelling, biodiversity measurement and prediction, fluvial geomorphology, eco-hydrology, geochemistry, stable isotope and radioisotope chemistry, geology, optical dating, sediment and nutrient dynamics, remote sensing and GIS, historical (and palaeo) assessments, erosion process modelling, sediment and nutrient tracing, and river ecology.