European Lakes Under Environmental Stressors (Supporting lake governance to mitigate the impact of climate change)
Most of the Central European Lakes have become more and more valuable natural resources deeply linked with the regional scale sustainable development. Change in water temperature, region water shortage, or the uneven temporal distribution of freshwater sources caused by climate change, are giving some initial future warning signs. The project EULAKES aims to promote a new integrated approach in order to improve the sustainable management of Central European lakes. EULAKES is combination of vulnerability and risk assessment, monitoring and environmental governance. The aim of EULAKES is enhance participative planning and management of Lakes basin to respond to climate change and other environmental stressors. Thanks to the active cooperation coming from a strong transnational partnership four Central European lakes with different characteristics have been selected to test this innovative approach. Lake Garda, IT, Lake Balaton, HU, Lake Neusiedl, AT and Lake Charzykowskie PL are so-called multipurpose lake. They are serving as potential habitats for indigenous wildlife, drinking water sources and have high recreational capacity. In the last 10 years these important and different ecosystems are showing significant increasing vulnerability in their functionality.The impacts of climate change is generating new scenarios that EULAKES project intend to investigate in order to support the local governance to take future sustainable decision for the future of basin areas development. 