Freshwater Biodiversity Working Group

Ian Harrison

Member of the Scientific Steering Committee and Chair of the Freshwater Biodiversity Working Group

Dr. Ian Harrison is the Technical Officer for the IUCN SSC/Wetlands International Freshwater Fish Specialist Group, co-chair of the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas Freshwater Specialist Group, and part of the Steering Committee of the IUCN SSC Freshwater Conservation Sub-Committee, and part of the Belmont Forum funded research team on Sustainable Deltas. He is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Fish Biology, a Research Associate in the Department of Ichthyology at the American Museum of Natural History, New York. He has published over 50 scientific papers and book/report chapters on the conservation of freshwater ecosystems.

Water Future Is Important To Me Because …

Freshwater ecosystems are recognised as among the most threatened and degraded on Earth, in terms of loss of habitats, threats to species. These are not just threats to the ecosystems, they are threats to the people who rely on these ecosystems and the water they deliver. Sustainable development means a sustainable water future, which means healthy, well managed, freshwater ecosystems.

Ben Stewart-Koster

Member of the Freshwater Biodiversity Working Group

Ben Stewart-Koster is a research fellow in quantitative ecology at the Australian Rivers Institute at Griffith University.  He works on basic and applied research in freshwater ecosystems from local to global scales collaborating with researchers, managers and farmers on projects across Europe, Asia, the USA and Australasia.  With a broad focus on relationships between river flows and aquatic organisms, he applies innovative statistical approaches to identify important ecological relationships that can guide the management of river ecosystems.  The findings of this research inform environmental flow recommendations and river restoration prioritisation as well as basic understanding of aquatic ecological processes.

Water Future Is Important To Me Because …

It’s a global problem that involves every person on the planet as well as being integral to environmental and ecological health

Marc Paganini

Member of the Freshwater Biodiversity Working Group

Marc Paganini of Belgian nationality, graduated in Electronic Engineering at the University of Liege, Belgium in 1987. He is currently employed as a technical officer in the Directorate of Earth Observation Programmes at the European Space Agency (ESA). He is member of the Science, Application and Future Technologies Department working on EO exploitation and services development. He has more than 25 years of experience in Earth Observation satellite missions at ESA, working first as a ground segment system engineer, responsible for payload data processing and instrument calibration. In 2000, he joined the ESRIN establishment in Frascati (Rome) and has been working for the last 15+ years in elaborating, organising and managing user-oriented applications and novel information services, with the objective to provide the user community at large with reliable, timely and continuous information about the Earth and its environment. His main field of expertise is the exploitation of EO satellite data for environmental governance and sustainable development. Marc Paganini is the ESA point of contract for a number of international environmental conventions such as the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and the Ramsar Conventions on Wetlands.

Water Future Is Important To Me Because …

Further information will be provided in due course.

Christof Schneider

Member of the Freshwater Biodiversity Working Group

Christof Schneider is a postdoctoral research fellow working for the “Global and Regional Dynamics” research group on Water at the Center for Environmental Systems Research (CESR), University of Kassel. His research interests cover large-scale integrated water resources modelling at the interface of human and environmental water requirements, with a special focus on assessing the impacts of dam operation, water use, and climate change on global and continental river flow regimes. Christof Schneider has been engaged in different international projects on global water resources and is part of the WaterGAP team.

Water Future Is Important To Me Because…

It is one of our biggest challenges this century to satisfy the various water demands of an exponentially growing world population without degrading river ecosystems and the vital services they provide for humankind. WATER FUTURE will make an important contribution to this.

Pete McIntyre

Member of the Freshwater Biodiversity Working Group

Pete McIntyre is an Associate Professor in the Center for Limnology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA.  He studies the ecology and conservation of freshwater fishes worldwide, with special interest in large lakes and rivers of Africa and North America.  Major research themes include fish migrations, climate warming, inland fisheries, and stressor assessments, all of which are pursued in partnership with NGOs and management agencies.  His team addresses these questions using intensive field work, environmental chemistry, GIS mapping, and statistical synthesis with the aim of understanding large-scale ecological patterns to aid in prioritizing conservation efforts.

Water Future Is Important To Me Because…

Further information will be available in due course.

Carmel Pollino

Member of the Freshwater Biodiversity Working Group

Dr. Carmel Pollino works as a Principal Research Scientist at CSIRO. She has 15 years of experience working in Environmental Flows, Risk Assessment, Integrated River Basin Planning and Ecological Modelling. Carmel has experience working water quality and quantity issues, considering ecological outcomes within broader systems, including complex governance, stakeholder and cultural contexts. Carmel has worked with Australian agencies in developing methods for and in evaluating the outcomes of Basin Planning, these methods have recently been applied in India.

Water Future Is Important To Me Because…

Further information will come in due course.

Jeremy Piffady

Member of the Freshwater Biodiversity Working Group

Jeremy Piffady is a research fellow in freshwater ecology at the French National Institute of Science and Technology for Environment and Agriculture in Lyon. He works on understanding the impacts of human activities, considered at different scales, and river biological features (communities structure, traits, resilience) and physical processes (hydromorphology alterations, sediment load continuity), by developing hierarchical and integrative models. Besides the river ecosystem understanding, applications of this work aim at enhancing better managing and restoration strategies, based on a contextualization of study sites in its general pressure context, in support of local, regional and national policies.

Water Future Is Important To Me Because…

Water is a primary driver of human society persistence: integrating human needs, security and ecosystems functions is a global challenge that needs to be addressed

Kris van Looy

Member of the Freshwater Biodiversity Working Group

Kris Van Looy is Senior Researcher at the River Hydro-ecology Lab of Irstea Lyon, France, and at the Institute for Bio- and Geosciences of the Jülich Research Institute in Germany.

Main research interests for ecological mechanisms in conservation and restoration of ecosystems, with a strong focus on landscape ecological approaches.
Recent research topics include:

  1. Ecological resilience: the mechanisms of resistance, adaptation and recovery;
  2. Effects of multiple threats to biota in a landscape and geographical context;
  3. River restoration;
  4. Dispersal and connectivity modelling; and
  5. Assessment methods based on analysis of distribution of communities, geographic and biotic assemblage and disturbance response contexts.

Being a general ecologist publications cover riparian arthropods, floodplain vegetation, riparian forest dynamics, aquatic invertebrates with techniques of meta-population modelling, hydraulic habitat modelling, population and landscape genetics. Since 2014 member of the board of directors of the International Society of River Science.

Water Future Is Important To Me Because…

Water future is important as it tackles a global problem, from a global perspective and looking for globally sustainable solutions. And although that seems obvious, it is not.

Shannan Crow

Member of the Freshwater Biodiversity Working Group

Dr. Shannan Crow is a Freshwater Ecologist at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) in New Zealand. He works on applied freshwater research that focusses on examining relationships between freshwater resource use and aquatic biota. His work also aims to assist indigenous communities with water management decisions and improve the sustainability of cultural and commercial freshwater fisheries. He has also developed large spatial-scale models of freshwater community structure for New Zealand, which has been used to guide ecosystem management decisions throughout the country.

Water Future Is Important To Me Because…

Fresh water supports essential economic, ecological and cultural values throughout the world. The future supply of fresh water must be effectively managed if these intrinsic societal and ecological values are to be maintained.

Pamela Green

Member of the Freshwater Biodiversity Working Group

Pamela Green is a senior research scientist at the CUNY Environmental CrossRoads Group, Advanced Science Research Center, specializing in water resources analysis and the study of linkages between human activities and natural systems.  Ms. Green’s professional career in scientific research spans over 15 years in the multi-disciplinary arena of earth systems science with focus on the impact of human activities on the hydrologic cycle. Current research at the CUNY Environmental CrossRoads Group includes synthesis studies of the interaction of humans in the regional and global water cycle, delineating threats to water resources, mapping ecosystem services supporting humans and exploring pathways for better management of these resources. Research projects include building indicators of water stress to humans and biodiversity, global assessments of freshwater ecosystem services supporting humans, quantifying ecosystem vulnerabilities to anthropogenic threats, identifying management and policy pathways to optimally manage critical natural resources, and designing scenarios to model trade-offs for water development investments.

Water Future Is Important To Me Because…

Further information will be forthcoming in due course.

Vanessa Reis

Member of the Freshwater Biodiversity Working Group

Vanessa Reis is currently PhD student at the Australian Rivers Institute of Griffith University (Australia). Her scientific background is in ecology of freshwater fish with interests ranging from species behaviour and basic ecology to investigation of species distribution patterns, catchment scale processes and conservation planning. She has working experience in tropical freshwater ecosystems such as the Amazon and the Atlantic forest in Brazil.

Since 2014, she has been working on the development of a new framework to tackle the uniqueness of wetlands temporal dynamics in systematic conservation planning. Her project focuses on assessing the conservation status and threats of the wetlands globally and developing catchment-integrated conservation planning methods and tools.

Water Future Is Important To Me Because…

More information to come.

Eren Turak

Member of the Freshwater Biodiversity Working Group

Eren Turak completed his PhD in Sydney on the biological classification of rivers and led large scale biological monitoring programs. His main areas of expertise are biodiversity monitoring, ecological modelling, freshwater conservation planning and biodiversity observation networks.He is the co-chair of GEO BON’s Freshwater Ecosystems Working Group and Principal Scientist (biodiversity research and assessment) at NSW Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH) in Australia. He is also a member WCPA Freshwater Task Force and a Research Associate at the Australian Museum.

Water Future Is Important To Me Because…

More information to come.

Photo courtesy of:  IUCN

Vanessa Bremerich

Member of the Freshwater Biodiversity Working Group

Vanessa Bremerich is a GIS specialist, focusing on open source geodatabase and web mapping application development at the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries in Berlin (IGB, Berlin). She holds a Diploma in Biology from the University of Goettingen. Her background is in plant ecology with interests in biodiversity and large scale geographical patterns. Within the BioFresh project her emphasis was the development of the Global Freshwater Biodiversity Atlas, and she is part of the team that maintains and develops the Freshwater Information Platform. She has contributed to projects on the global distribution of biological field stations, as well as freshwater megafauna species and is currently involved in several international research projects dealing with freshwater biodiversity and ecosystem-based management (AQUACROSS), multiple stressors affecting freshwater ecosystems (MARS), and integrated water resources management in Mongolia (MOMO3).

Water Future Is Important To Me Because…

More information to come.

Photo courtesy of : IGB-David Ausserhofer

William Darwall

Member of the Freshwater Biodiversity Working Group

Dr William Darwall holds a PhD in Biological Sciences from the University of Hull (2004) as well as an MSc in Ecology and Evolution from the University of Utah and a BSc in Zoology from the University of St Andrews, Scotland. He is Head of the IUCN Global Species Programme’s Freshwater Biodiversity Unit. He has over 25 years experience working on and leading collaborative research projects on the ecology and conservation of aquatic ecosystems in developing countries. The main focus of his current work with IUCN includes implementation of large-scale biodiversity assessments of freshwater systems, including assessment of species threatened status for the IUCN Red List and the identification of Freshwater Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs). He has completed projects to assess the status of freshwater biodiversity throughout continental Africa, Europe and large parts of Asia. His past field experience includes research and conservation projects in Malawi, Tanzania and Ireland, and he has worked in commercial aquaculture in Scotland.

Water Future Is Important To Me Because…

 

Aaike De Wever

Member of the Freshwater Biodiversity Working Group

Aaike De Wever is scientific data manager and coordinator for freshwater biodiversity data projects (including the development of the Freshwater Information Platform (BioFresh) data portal ). Aaike has a background on aquatic microbial ecology in freshwater environments. For his PhD, he studied the microbial food web in Lake Tanganyika and has experience with challenging experimental fieldwork, molecular ecology and data management. After his PhD, he worked on microbial ecology of Antarctic lakes and teledetection of benthic micro-algae on intertidal mudflats. For the BioFresh project he coordinated the data workflow and the creation of the public data portal [1], which is continued through the Freshwater Information Platform and efforts to extend the Freshwater Animal Diversity Assessment (FADA) database through the AquaRES project. He is also actively involved in the data workpackages of the EU BON and the AMAZONFISH project, and coordinates a national project on freshwater data recovery in Belgium: SAFRED – Saving Freshwater Biodiversity Research Data.

Water Future Is Important To Me Because…

 

Lammert Hilaridis

Member of the Freshwater Biodiversity Working Group

Lammert Hilarides holds an MSc in Ecosystem Biology from Wageningen University, where he majored in Ecosystem Biology and GIS. While working in the public and private sector for 12 years he specialized in open source geospatial technologies and worked in different roles on international projects. Now working for Wetlands International, Lammert coordinates the Remote Sensing, GIS and software development components in a portfolio of projects, like the Wetland Vision project on peat forest, the Global Mangrove Watch and the Horizon 2020 funded Satellite-based Wetland Observation Service. He became involved in the GEO-BON Freshwater Ecosystem Change group in 2013 and is a founder and co-lead of the GEO-Wetlands Initiative.

Water Future Is Important To Me Because…

 

Jörg Freyhof

Member of the Freshwater Biodiversity Working Group

Dr. Jörg Freyhof has worked at the Alexander Koenig Research Museum, Bonn and the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv). He is currently  employed at the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries, Berlin with a focus on biodiversity and urban ecology. He is a regional chair of the IUCN Freshwater Fish Specialist Group and an IUCN Red List Authority. Dr. Jörg Freyhof has a strong scientific background in freshwater biodiversity  and was involved in several large scale EU-funded biodiversity projects on biodiversity data (BioFresh, GlobiB, ECOPOTENTIAL) and several other projects. Dr. Freyhof was also involved in the GEO-BON Freshwater Ecosystem Change group in 2009 and worked as the Executive Director of GEO BON between 2014 and 2016.

Water Future Is Important To Me Because…

 

Sonja Jähnig

Member of the Freshwater Biodiversity Working Group

Dr. Sonja Jähnig is an ecologist, interested in global change effects in river ecosystems, and a research group leader at the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB, Berlin), Department of Ecosystem Research. She holds a Diploma in Environmental Sciences and a PhD from University of Duisburg-Essen. Sonja’s research focuses on the influence of abiotic factors on aquatic organisms and communities, integrating different spatial and temporal scales. She has elaborated on applying species distribution models to predict climate change impacts on riverine invertebrate communities and on improving and advancing such models for application in riverine environments by developing an integrated modelling methodology. The latter particularly focus on flow and on global change induced flow alterations. She is also interested in large scale patterns of freshwater biodiversity and river health, and traits and functions in river ecosystems.

Water Future Is Important To Me Because…

 

Bernhard Lehner

Member of the Freshwater Biodiversity Working Group

Dr. Bernhard Lehner is a faculty member of the Department of Geography at McGill University, Montreal, Canada. His main research themes are large-scale hydrology, hydrographic mapping, and freshwater conservation. Major research projects include the design and development of global river network maps (HydroSHEDS), basin delineations (HydroBASINS) and watershed characterizations (HydroATLAS), as well as global lakes, wetlands and reservoir databases (GLWD, GRanD, GIEMS-D15, HydroLAKES). The goal of these GIS projects is to generate basic data layers in support of regional and global eco-hydrological modeling, watershed analyses, and freshwater conservation planning at a quality, resolution and extent that have previously been unachievable.

Applications of these data sets span multiple scales (from local to global) and cover a broad variety of topics, including studies on the eco-hydrological effects of dam constructions, large-scale river reach and basin classifications, environmental flow assessments and integrated freshwater conservation analyses. Dr. Lehner has collaborated for over 15 years with a variety of international conservation organizations, including WWF, TNC, and IUCN.

Water Future Is Important To Me Because…

 

Roger Sayre

Member of the Freshwater Biodiversity Working Group

Roger Sayre is an ecosystems geographer in the Land Change Science Program of the U.S. Geological Survey. He is currently leading the GEO (Group on Earth Observations) intergovernmental effort to map global terrestrial, marine and freshwater ecosystems in a standardized, robust, and practical manner, and is doing that work in collaboration with Esri and international ecosystem scientists.

Water Future Is Important To Me Because…

 

Adrian Strauch

Member of the Data and Earth Observation Core Group and Member of the Freshwater Biodiversity Working Group

Adrian Strauch is a Research Associate at the Center for Remote Sensing of Land Surfaces (ZFL) of the University of Bonn (Germany). His scientific background is in physical geography with interests ranging from geomorphology and soil science to catchment hydrology and sustainable development. Since 2013 he is strongly involved in the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) through several EU and German funded projects and part of different GEO working groups and committees in the thematic areas of ‘Water Resources Management’ and ‘Biodiversity and Ecosystem Sustainability’.

Adrian’s current focus is on the global science-policy interactions related to the use of EO methods and tools for mapping, monitoring and assessment of global wetland ecosystems in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals and the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. He is a founder and co-lead of the new GEO-Wetlands initiative.

Water Future Is Important To Me Because…

 

Simon Linke

Member of the Freshwater Biodiversity Working Group

Simon Linke is a Senior Research Fellow of the Australian Rivers Institute, Griffith University and a member of the IUCN WCPA Freshwater Task Force.

Simon is recognized as one of the world leaders in the field of freshwater conservation planning. Together with a friendly band of researchers and practitioners from Australia, the USA, New Zealand and South Africa, he is one of the founders of the discipline of conservation planning in river systems. Together with his friend and colleague Eren Turak, Simon was commissioned to edit the first ever special issue freshwater conservation planning for the journal ‘Freshwater Biology’.

Simon has not only been involved in high profile planning projects (such as a large scale conservation planning exercises of the Congo River and in Bhutan), but has also always had a focus on developing tools that facilitate uptake of conservation science – for example a systematic decision support system to optimise environmental water allocations for the Australian federal government as well as a suite of tools to integrate freshwater planning into conservation software.

Water Future Is Important To Me Because…

 

Yoshihide Wada

Member of the SDG Assessment Core Group; Member of the Freshwater Biodiversity Working Group; and Member of the Groundwater Management Working Group

Dr. Yoshihide Wada is a Senior Research Scholar and Deputy Director of IIASA’s Water (WAT) Program. Dr. Wada obtained his PhD degree with distinction (Cum Laude) at Utrecht University in October, 2013. His work also includes estimating and projecting global water scarcity, and assessing the sustainability of global groundwater resources. His current research projects include a hlobal assessment of the sustainability of future food production under socioeconomic and climate change, and water scarcity. He has participated in the IPCC AR5 report (Working Group I).  Dr. Wada has co-authored about 100 publications, 60 of which appeared in international peer-reviewed journals.

Water Future Is Important To Me Because…

Cross-sectoral collaborations on global groundwater issues and developing the management options.

Martina Flörke

Member of the SDG Assessment Core Group and Member of the Freshwater Biodiversity Working Group

Martina Flörke leads the research group on water at the Center for Environmental Systems Research, University of Kassel. Her research concentrates on the identification and quantification of consequences of global change for the environment and for societies, in particular related to freshwater quantity and quality. The thematic areas cover the impacts of socio-economic developments, climate and land use changes on water resources. Analysis and evaluation of impacts are accomplished qualitatively by applying scenario development methodologies and quantitatively by modelling and indicator development. She is jointly responsible for the development of the global water modelling framework WaterGAP3 to simulate changes of the hydrological cycle, water use, and in-stream concentrations.

Water Future Is Important To Me Because…

Further information will be available in due course.