Martyn Kelly

Newcastle University | NCL · School of Geography, Politics and Sociology

Defining nutrient thresholds that protect and support the ecological integrity of aquatic ecosystems is a fundamental step in maintaining their natural biodiversity and preserving their resilience. With increasing catchment pressures and climate change, it is more important than ever to develop clear methods to establish thresholds for status class...

Salinization is a global threat to freshwater habitats that has been intensified by climate change. Monitoring, assessment and management of salinity is therefore essential. The first step is to set criteria that are sufficiently stringent to protect ecosystem health. However, many countries have not yet defined criteria, and there are substantial...

Recommended Citation: WWQA Ecosystems, 2023. White Paper – Embedding Lakes into the Global Sustainability Agenda. Published by UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology on behalf of the United Nations Environment Programme coordinated World Water Quality Alliance Ecosystems Workstream. 22nd March 2023. ISBN: 978-1-906698-82-9. doi: 10.5281/zenodo.7752982....

Phytobenthos, major primary producers in freshwater, may be periodically exposed to herbicides through runoff, spray drift, and leaching, but experimental work on their response to herbicides is limited. Outdoor flumes were used to measure the recovery of intact phytobenthic biofilms, following a short-term pulse to a glyphosate-based herbicide (GB...

Six species of the genus Achnanthidium Ktz. with straight terminal raphe fissures including Achnanthidium caledonicum (Lange-Bert.) Lange-Bert., A. sieminskae Witkowski, Kulikowskiy & Riaux-Gob., Achnanthidium neomicrocephalum Lange-Bert. & F.Staab and Achnanthidium minutissimum (Ktz.) Czarn. were studied using light and scanning electron microscop...

Nutrient targets based on pressure-response models are essential for defining ambitions and managing eutrophication. However, the scale of biogeographical variation in these pressure-response relationships is poorly understood, which may hinder eutrophication management in regions where lake ecology is less intensively studied. In this study, we de...

1. The epilithon of steep sandstone and shale rock-walls (Molasse) was investigated in a part of Lake Constance (Überlinger See; southern Germany) between 2017 and 2019 and compared to the findings of Lauterborn and Zimmermann from 100 years ago. 2. The main objective was to find evidence to support the hypothesis that the brown alga Bodanella lau...

One key component of any eutrophication management strategy is establishment of realistic thresholds above which negative impacts become significant and provision of ecosystem services is threatened. This paper introduces a toolkit of statistical approaches with which such thresholds can be set, explaining their rationale and situations under which...

The task group on supporting physico-chemical elements have reviewed information reported by Member States to WISE on the standards for general physico-chemical quality elements including nutrients. A wide range of supporting physico-chemical elements are used by Member States. This report focusses on those that are ecologically most relevant for i...

The task group on supporting physico-chemical elements have reviewed information reported by Member States to WISE on the standards for general physico-chemical quality elements including nutrients. A wide range of supporting physico-chemical elements are used by Member States and this report provides a general introduction then focusses on those t...

Freshwaters face multiple environmental problems including eutrophication, acidification, salinization, and climate-change, all of which can lead to impairment of ecosystem structure and function. Furthermore, these stressors often act in combination. Benthic algal-based assessments to quantify impairment are used in both the EU and US. In this rev...

Nutrient pollution remains one of the leading causes of river degradation, making it important to set thresholds that support good ecological condition, which is the main objective of managing Europe's aquatic environment. A wide range of methods has been used by European member states to set river nutrient thresholds in the past, and these vary gr...

Many freshwaters in base-poor upland areas of Britain continue to be affected by acidification as a result of deposition of air pollutants, and agricultural and forestry practices. The effects of land use and annual liming on stream chemistry, diatoms and salmon populations were investigated over eight years in the upper catchment of the River Wye,...

Fundamental differences in the nature of diatom assemblage composition data generated using light microscopy and molecular barcoding create problems when applying current paradigms and metrics developed for ecological assessment. We therefore describe the development of a new metric designed specifically for diatom rbcL barcode data gathered using...

The reference model underlying the UK phytobenthos (diatom) tool for Water Framework Directive assessments is revisited and a new approach is proposed which uses quantile regression to predict the lowest values of the Trophic Diatom Index (equating to the best available condition) at any level of alkalinity . Whilst a reference model based on least...

Mediterranean streams are naturally highly-stressed environments mainly due to wide seasonal and inter-annual fluctuations in water quantity. This natural pressure will be exacerbated by climate change and is a significant challenge when establishing efficient assessment methods. We studied environmental parameters (hydromorphology, hydrology, phys...

The European Union has embarked on a policy which aims to achieve good ecological status in all surface waters (i.e. rivers, lakes, transitional and coastal waters). In theory, ecological status assessment methods should address the effects of all relevant human pressures. In this study, we analyze the degree to which methods European countries use...

Classical biomonitoring techniques have focused primarily on measures linked to various biodiversity metrics and indicator species. Next-generation biomonitoring (NGB) describes a suite of tools and approaches that allow the examination of a broader spectrum of organizational levels—from genes to entire ecosystems. Here, we frame 10 key questions t...

Diatoms (Bacillariophyta) are ubiquitous microalgae which produce a siliceous exoskeleton and which make a major contribution to the productivity of oceans and freshwaters. They display a huge diversity, which makes them excellent ecological indicators of aquatic ecosystems. Usually, diatoms are identified using characteristics of their exoskeleton...

The aim of European water policy is to achieve good ecological status in all rivers, lakes, coastal and transitional waters by 2027. Currently, more than half of water bodies are in a degraded condition and nutrient enrichment is one of the main culprits. Therefore, there is a pressing need to establish reliable and comparable nutrient criteria tha...

Freshwaters face multiple environmental problems including eutrophication, acidification, salinization, and climate-change, all of which can lead to impairment of ecosystem structure and function. Furthermore, these stresses act in combination. Benthic algal-based assessments to quantify impairment are used in both the EU and USA. Using case studie...

One hundred and forty river assessment methods have been intercalibrated and included in the European countries`countries`monitoring tool-kits. Half of these methods are based on primary producers: macrophytes (29 methods), phytobenthos (28), and phytoplankton (13). Biological assessment methods based on primary producers usually target nutrient en...

This paper explores the diversity and taxonomy of species within Fragilaria sensu stricto, an abundant and ecologically important diatom genus, taking advantage of cultured and DNA‐barcoded material. The goal is to facilitate identification of European taxa within this complex, providing a unified view on morphological and molecular diversity. Ther...

In contrast to diatom assemblages in lakes in most other parts of Europe, those in lowland lakes in Romania appear to be determined primarily by biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) and conductivity rather than by nutrients. This has confounded the development of a Water Framework Directive-compatible phytobenthos assessment system for Romanian lakes an...

The Water Framework Directive requires nutrient boundary concentrations to be established as part of the assessment of ecological status. In this report we use data and relationships developed during the intercalibration exercise for lakes and national monitoring data for rivers to determine ranges of potential nutrient (N & P) boundary concentrati...

Establishing ecological assessment schemes is challenging when gradients are short and there are no sites with minimal anthropogenic alteration against which metrics can be calibrated. This is the situation for large rivers in Romania and this paper describes efforts to establish meaningful ecological status concepts. The intercalibration exercise,...

The purpose of this document is to help Member States achieve good ecological status (GES) in surface waters. It complements the common implementation strategy (CIS) Guidance document on eutrophication assessment in the context of European water policies (European Commission, 2009) by providing advice on how to link nutrient concentrations in surfa...

Small, 1st and 2nd-order, headwater streams and ponds play essential roles in providing natural flood control, trapping sediments and contaminants, retaining nutrients, and maintaining biological diversity, which extend into downstream reaches, lakes and estuaries. However, the large geographic extent and high connectivity of these small water bodi...

Example on-farm mitigation measures targeting different components of the water pollution cascade.

Abstract The Water Framework Directive (WFD) is a pioneering piece of legislation that aims to protect and enhance aquatic ecosystems and promote sustainable water use across Europe. There is growing concern that the objective of good status, or higher, in all EU waters by 2027 is a long way from being achieved in many countries. Through questionn...

The European Water Framework Directive has been adopted by Member States to assess and manage the ecological integrity of surface waters. Specific challenges include harmonizing diverse assessment systems across Europe, linking ecological assessment to restoration measures and reaching a common view on ‘good’ ecological status. In this study, nine...

A Shiny application of a statistical toolkit to assist with the development of nutrient concentrations that would support good ecological status for the Water Framework Directive.

This two-page policy overview of problems for small water bodies and management options to address them accompanies the paper by Riley et al. (2018)

European water policy has identified eutrophication as a priority issue for water management. Substantial progress has been made in combating eutrophication but open issues remain, including setting reliable and meaningful nutrient criteria supporting ʽgoodʼ ecological status of the Water Framework Directive. The paper introduces a novel methodolog...

The potential for using benthic algae to identify areas around the lake littoral that are potentially influenced by diffuse inputs of nutrients is considered through research based around Ennerdale Water in NW England. This is an oligotrophic lake with a highly sensitive population of Margalifera margalifera in the outflow river. Water chemistry, a...

Assessment of ecological status for the European Water Framework Directive (WFD) is based on "Biological Quality Elements" (BQEs), namely phytoplankton, benthic flora, benthic invertebrates and fish. Morphological identification of these organisms is a time-consuming and expensive procedure. Here, we assess the options for complementing and, perhap...

Diatoms are used routinely to assess pollution level in rivers and lakes. Current methods are based on identification by light microscopy, which is laborious. An alternative is to identify species based on short DNA fragments and High–Throughput Sequencing (HTS). However a potential limitation is the incomplete coverage of species in reference barc...

During a study of the diatoms of streams in Cyprus, two Ulnaria species were difficult to identify using current taxonomic concepts, which created difficulties when trying to understand their ecological preferences. as a result, both taxa were investigated in detail using light (LM) and scanning electron (SeM) microscopy. Literature searches showed...

A DNA based metabarcoding approach to assess diatom communities in rivers Project summary SC140024 This project has established a novel, DNA based method to monitor and assess the make-up of diatom communities in rivers. We report the results of the first large scale development and testing of a metabarcoding method (Figure 1); combining DNA barco...

Aquatic biomonitoring has become an essential task in Europe and many other regions as a consequence of strong anthropogenic pressures affecting the health of lakes, rivers, oceans and groundwater. A typical assessment of the environmental quality status, such as it is required by European but also North American and other legislation, relies on ma...

Aquatic biomonitoring has become an essential task in Europe and many other regions as a consequence of strong anthropogenic pressures affecting the health of lakes, rivers, oceans and groundwater. A typical assessment of the environmental quality status, such as it is required by European but also North American and other legislation, relies on ma...

The website ‘Diatom Flora of Britain and Ireland’ is an online identification tool for researchers with an interest in diatom taxonomy and ecology. It documents taxa found in Britain and Ireland using light and electron microscope images and incorporates recent taxonomic revisions. The website is hosted by Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales (h...

Diatoms and the Continuing Relevance of Morphology to Studies on Taxonomy, Systematics and Biogeography. Celebrating the Work and Impact of Patricia A. Sims on the Occasion of her 80th Birthday. J. Witkowski , D. Williams & J. P. Kociolek (eds). Nova Hedwigia, Beiheft 144. Stuttgart: J. Cramer in der Gebrüder Borntraeger Verlagsbuchhandlung. 2015....

The protection, preservation and restoration of aquatic ecosystems and their functions are of global importance. For European states it became legally binding mainly through the EU-Water Framework Directive (WFD). In order to assess the ecological status of a given water body, aquatic biodiversity data are obtained and compared to a reference water...

Aquatic plants and benthic algae have long been used as indicators for nutrient enrichment in lakes and streams. Evaluations of the performance of indices calculated from species assemblages of aquatic plants and algae are generally based on correlations with water nutrient concentrations. We argue that this is a misinterpretation, because water ch...

Freshwater acidification continues to be a major problem affecting large areas of Europe, and while there is evidence for chemical recovery, similar evidence for biological recovery of freshwaters is sparse. The need for a methodology to identify waterbodies impacted acidification and to assess the extent of biological recovery is relevant to the E...

This opinion paper introduces a special series of articles dedicated to freshwater benthic algae and their use in assessment and monitoring. This special series was inspired by talks presented at the 9th International Congress on the Use of Algae for Monitoring Rivers and Comparable Habitats (Trento, Italy, 2015), the latest of a series of meetings...

Although the Water Framework Directive specifies that macrophytes and phytobenthos should be used for the ecological assessment of lakes and rivers, practice varies widely throughout the EU. Most countries have separate methods for macrophytes and phytobenthos in rivers; however, the situation is very different for lakes. Here, 16 countries do not...

Most methods for ecological assessment developed since the onset of the Water Framework Directive require substantial effort by skilled analysts and are therefore expensive to use. RAPPER (“Rapid Assessment of PeriPhyton Ecology in Rivers”) is a high level ecological “triage” method that enables rapid screening of sites within a water body to enabl...

The Water Framework Directive is the first international legislation to require European countries to establish comparable ecological assessment schemes for their freshwaters. A key element in harmonising quality classification within and between Europe's river basins is an " Intercalibration " exercise, stipulated by the WFD, to ensure that the go...

A large number of new ecological assessment tools have been developed in Europe in response to the obligations imposed on Member States by the Water Framework Directive. These have been extensively evaluated and compared to ensure consistent application of this legislation across the European Union. In this essay, we suggest that part of the variat...

The distributions of Nitzschia inconspicua Grunow and N. soratensis E. Morales & Viz in response to environmental variables were compared using a dataset composed of samples from 46 locations in UK streams and rivers; they were also investigated using laboratory experiments. There were only three samples in which both species occurred with a relati...

Eleven European countries participated in an exercise to harmonise diatom-based methods used for status assessment in lakes. Lakes were divided into low, medium and high alkalinity types for this exercise. However, it was not possible to perform a full intercalibration on low alkalinity lakes due to the short gradient and confounding factors. Value...

Assessment of ecological integrity is the basis for sustainable management of the ecosystem services lakes provide. Periphyton is used in stream assessment, but lake assessment is based mostly on water-column variables. We addressed the use of periphyton to assess lakes, how factors influence responses of periphyton metrics, and whether periphyton...

The European Union’s Water Framework Directive (WFD) requires that all water bodies in Europe achieve good ecological status (GES) by 2015. We developed an ecological classification tool for UK lakes based on benthic diatoms, a key component of the biological-quality element macrophytes and phytobenthos. A database of 1079 epilithic and epiphytic d...

The Welsh Government has commissioned a comprehensive new ecosystem monitoring and evaluation programme to monitor the effects of Glastir, its new land management scheme, and to monitor progress towards a range of international biodiversity and environmental targets. A random sample of 1 km squares stratified by landcover types will be used both to...

The Water Framework Directive (WFD) embodies concepts of “ecological health”. This essay extends this metaphor, looking at the ways in which ecologists should diagnose and treat “sick” ecosystems. Recent practice in the UK has been to develop multifunctional ecologists to act as ecological equivalents of “family doctors”. This requires methods that...

Blanket peat catchments are important biodiversity refugia. Key pressures on peatland catchment water bodies include artificial drainage, forestry, over-grazing, wind farm development and climate change, and assessment of these pressures requires sensitive monitoring programmes. This study, undertaken in two neighbouring blanket peat catchments, ex...

One of the key actions identified by the Water Framework Directive (WFD; 2000/60/EC) is to develop ecological assessment tools and carry out a European intercalibration (IC) exercise. The aim of the Intercalibration is to ensure that the values assigned by each Member State to the good ecological class boundaries are consistent with the Directive’s...

The Water Framework Directive (WFD) provides the legal basis for water management in the European Union (EU). Twelve years after it was passed, all but five EU Member States had phytobenthos assessment methods for rivers, whilst nine had methods for lakes. Most are based on diatoms, although a few are supplemented by evaluations of non-diatoms and...

The use of instruments such as toothbrushes for sampling diatoms from hard surfaces is a potential source of uncertainty in ecological status assessments as diatoms may be inadvertently transferred from one sample to another. The scale of this contamination was investigated by sampling two sites differing in a number of key environmental properties...

Diatoms have become an integral part of the UK’s freshwater monitoring strategy over the past two decades, mostly in response to increasingly stringent European Union (EU) legislation. The use of diatoms is based on strong correlations between diatom assemblages and environmental variables, and from knowledge of the “expected” (= “reference”) state...

Diatoms have become an integral part of the UK's freshwater monitoring strategy over the past two decades, mostly in response to increasingly stringent European Union (EU) legislation. The use of diatoms is based on strong correlations between diatom assemblages and environmental variables, and from knowledge of the "expected" (= "reference") state...

The taxonomy of several small-celled, ecologically significant Nitzschia species, which are frequently confused with each other or whose names are misapplied, is clarified. Following an examination of type material and modern samples by light and electron microscopy, it was concluded that N. frustulum (Kützing) Grunow, N. inconspicua Grunow, N. sor...