Ecosystem

Aquatic invertebrates are used as bioindicators to evaluate the quality of Swiss watercourses. However, climate change is also leading to changes in the species composition of these organisms. Eawag has now investigated the impacts of increasing temperatures on water body evaluations on behalf of the FOEN. The findings: the indicators are expected to remain relevant at least for the coming decades.

There are more than 1300 tree species in Swiss cities, while our forests are home to only 76, according to a study by the WSL. This means that introduced forest pests or diseases also find significantly more potential hosts in cities – and could spread from there into the forests.

Biodiversity is dwindling rapidly, while measures to protect it are lagging behind the targets. Only one thing can help: utilising scarce resources as efficiently as possible where they are most effective. The “Lanat-3” research project lays the foundation for this with the help of the latest data and AI-supported models.

An Eawag project is investigating how borehole thermal energy storage (BTES) affects the surrounding soil, the groundwater and the microorganisms living in it.

EPFL has teamed up with three organizations – the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag), the University of Lausanne (UNIL) and the Association for the Safeguard of Lake Geneva (ASL) – to develop Lémanscope, a citizen-science initiative to monitor the health of Lake Geneva. Today the researchers are calling on volunteers to help collect essential data.

An EPFL scientist along with colleagues from universities across Europe have completed the first-ever quantitative study of the changes that soil organic matter from forests can cause in high-altitude and high-latitude lakes once it’s dissolved in the water.