Developing methods to assess the presence, functions and sensitivity of groundwater ecosystems

Expected Outcome

Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• the knowledge of existing groundwater ecosystems[1] is improved, supporting policymakers and technical experts in assessments of their presence, functions and condition or status, and their role for climate change mitigation;
• society benefits from enhanced knowledge and awareness of pollution and overexploitation risks to groundwater ecosystems and the ecosystem services provided by them, including of possible implications for other related ecosystems (associated aquatic and dependent terrestrial ecosystems) and for human health as well as for food and water security, disaster risk reduction and resilience building;
• the EU water polices are supported with new scientific evidence and public authorities are better equipped for setting effective measures for the protection of groundwater biodiversity and their possible links to groundwater-dependent ecosystems.

Scope

The European Environment Agency (EEA)’s report on Europe's state of water (2024)[2] highlighted that 77% of groundwater, which supplies two thirds of the EU's drinking water, is in good chemical status. For groundwater not reaching good chemical status, the report identified nitrates, pesticides and pharmaceuticals among main issues. However, less is known about contaminants of emerging concern, such as perfluorinated substances (e.g. PFAS), microplastics and antimicrobial resistance. The Commission proposal[3] to revise the lists of surface- and groundwater pollutants and their standards in the Water Framework Directive, in the Groundwater Directive and in the Environmental Quality Standards Directive aims to address these concerns. Although freshwater standards can serve as a benchmark, standards that are protective for freshwater ecosystems may not be sufficiently protective for groundwater ecosystems.[4] Much stronger evidence on presence, functions and sensitivity of groundwater ecosystems is required for a reliable hazard assessment.

Significant knowledge gaps exist regarding groundwater ecosystems and their biodiversity in Europe, making it challenging to establish their effective protection. Proposals should address such gaps, which would ultimately lead to better protection of our precious drinking water resources, as well as groundwater biodiversity and geodiversity, but also groundwater (aquatic and terrestrial)-dependent ecosystems and biodiversity.

More specifically proposals under this topic should include all of the following activities:

• improve and develop innovative methods, including by utilising sensors (e.g. biosensors, remote sensors), for assessing and characterising groundwater ecosystems and their sensitivity, and identifying the presence and functions of different taxonomic groups and organisms;
• establish harmonised, validated, and ultimately standardised, methods and generate reliable experimental data on acute and chronic effects for assessing ecotoxicity of pollutants as regards groundwater ecosystems and in particular sensitive/ vulnerable ecosystems, with the aim to prioritize substances and deriving groundwater standards to protect them;
• identify a suite of biological and physico-chemical quality elements in view of a possible future assessment and classification of groundwater ecological status for inclusion in EU water legislation. This should include developing criteria and targets related to the temporary or long-term impacts on groundwater ecosystems.

Where relevant, activities should build and expand on the results of past and ongoing EU-funded projects and initiatives, for example projects funded by the co-funded partnership “Water4All”, with focus on groundwaters, to share experiences, reach synergies and avoid duplication.

Proposals are encouraged to combine inter-disciplinary expertise and integrate perspectives from different governance levels.

Concrete efforts should be made to ensure that the data produced in the context of the funded project is FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Re-usable), exploring workflows that can provide “FAIR-by-design” data, i.e., data that is FAIR from its generation. Possibilities offered by the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) and by relevant European research infrastructures including the Catalogue of Life (COL), DiSSCo, LifeWatch ERIC, eLTER and MIRRI-ERIC (and any other relevant research infrastructure prioritised by the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI)[5]) to store and give access to research data could be considered where relevant.

Proposals should foresee appropriate resources to ensure close cooperation with the EC Knowledge Centre for Biodiversity (KCBD) and its Science Service. The research actions are expected to yield valuable new insights and data, supporting and informing future assessments by IPBES.

The JRC can provide estimates of groundwater recharge and contribution of groundwater to streamflow, based on continental scale hydrological modelling, and consider testing the methods developed in the project, for the purposes of continental scale assessment of groundwater-dependent ecosystems.

International cooperation with Mediterranean countries is encouraged.

[1] Groundwater ecosystems, in a broad sense, encompass systems formed by organisms inhabiting water-filled spaces in the subsurface, including sediments and rocks, the hyporheic zone beneath rivers, the interfaces at springs and lakes, and the zone from the groundwater table surface down to the deepest habitable conditions, such as cave waters. These ecosystems are open systems that maintain direct connections with other aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems.

[2] https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/analysis/publications/europes-state-of-water-2024

[3] https://environment.ec.europa.eu/publications/proposal-amending-water-directives_en

[4] See for example EMA (European Medicines Agency, 2018). Guideline on assessing the environmental and human health risks of veterinary medicinal products in groundwater (EMA/CVMP/ERA/103555/2015,London).

[5] https://ri-portfolio.esfri.eu/