Events, workshops and meetings
WISER project scientists and technicians are participating at several workshops and meetings.
Upcoming meetings
2012
WISER final conference, 23-26 January 2012 Tallinn, Estonia
The conference aims at providing a platform to present applicability of the developed tools and approaches. The focus will be on a science-policy interface with specific sessions for in-depth scientific presentations and hands-on sessions for the end users. read more..
2010
WISER midterm project meeting, 6-9 September 2010 in Debe, Poland.
The WISER midterm project meeting is scheduled from 6-9 September 2010 and will take place in Debe, Poland, it will be hosted by our Polish partner, the Institute of Environmental Protection (Warsaw). The Debe Conference Centre is located about 40-45 km north of Warsaw and accessible via Warsaw Airport.
Draft agenda
Mon 6 Sep: Welcome, opening plenary and workpackage meetings
Tue 7 Sep: Workpackage meetings
Wed 8 Sep: Workpackage meetings, Advisory board meeting, afternoon field trip and social dinner
Thu 9 Sep: Module and summary meetings, closing plenary
Download 2nd circular (pdf, 350kb)
Registration
Deadline for registration: Monday 9 August.
Information about the location: Debe Conference Centre
Download .ics
Integrative Tools and Methods in Assessing Ecological Quality in Estuarine and Coastal Systems Worldwide - ECSA 47 Symposium
The IMAR – Institute of Marine Research, University of Coimbra, and the Centre of Oceanography, University of Lisbon, will organize the ECSA 47 Symposium, which will be held at Figueira da Foz, Portugal, 14-19 of September 2010
This International Symposium will focus on Integrative tools and methods in assessing ecological quality in estuarine and coastal systems worldwide.
Presently, this is among the most important ecological subjects on debate. However, despite the increasing attention that has been paid to the development of tools for different physicochemical or biological elements, very few methodologies integrate them when evaluating ecosystems condition. The development of such integrative tools is therefore of major importance, both from a scientific and stakeholder points of view, and must take into account the multidisciplinarity of the problems involved.
The ECSA 47 Symposium will contribute to provide an overview of the current situation through examples from each of the continents. Moreover, the organisers aim at contributing to bring together, in a proper setting, science, management and decision making.
Contacts were established with Estuarine Coastal and Shelf Science and Ecological Indicators looking forward to the publication of the most relevant results of the Symposium, which we hope will represent an incentive for really good presentations. For registration, abstract submission, and all the information regarding ECSA 47 please go to: www.uc.pt/imar/ecsa47
Session 1: From sediments and water to top predators: how to use these elements in assessing environmental quality?
Keynote speaker: Dr. Angel Borja, AZTI–Tecnalia, Marine Research Division, Spain
Session 2: Ecological risk assessment in marine and estuarine ecosystems: how to integrate physicochemical, ecological and ecotoxicological methods?
Keynote speaker: Dr. Ricardo Beiras, University of Santiago, Spain
Session 3: Robustness of ecological indicators in detecting anthropogenic pressures. Can they cope with natural changes?
Session 4: How comparable are ecological assessment criteria and approaches worldwide?
Keynote speaker: Dr. Daniel M. Dauer, Department of Biological Sciences, Old Dominion University, USA
Session 5: Integrate to evaluate and manage: How to do it?
Session 6: WISER special session
Keynote speaker: Dr. Sebastian Birk, University of Duisburg Essen, Germany
Download .ics
Within the coming 2010 ICES Annual Science Conference, to be held in Nantes (France), between 20th and 24th of September (www.ices.dk/asc2010/) WISER scientists have organised a session entitled: “Benthic indicators: responding to different human pressures and assessing integrative quality status”.
The objective of this session is to compare the methodologies existing in various countries, for different systems, trying to improve the knowledge of the suitability of such approaches when using benthic communities under different human pressures. Contributions are welcome on the following topics:
- Benthic indices for hard- and soft-bottom substrata (macroinvertebrates and macroalgae), both in coastal and estuarine systems
- Setting reference conditions for coastal and estuarine waters, in a changing ocean
- Response of indices to different human pressures
- Comparison of different indices across different geographies
- Managing invasive species in benthic quality assessment
- Response of benthic indices to aquatic restoration
- Uncertainty in assessing quality status, using benthic indices
- Integrating benthic indices with other biological elements, when assessing ecological integrity of marine waters.
We encourage you to submit your contributions on these issues, before Thursday 15 April, using the above mentioned web page.
Download .ics
The 12th Baltic Sea GIG meeting will take place in Gdynia in Poland. The meeting will take place 29 - 30 September 2010 at the Branch of the Institute of Meteorology and Water Management in Gdynia. In case of qeustions please contact the local organizer of the meeting Dr. Elzbieta Lysiak-Pastuszak (Elzbieta.Lysiak-Pastuszak@ingw.pl)
Download information on hotel and travel (pdf, 95kb)
Download draft agenda (pdf, 95kb)
Download .ics
A General COAST meeting will take place in Cyprus at 9 - 11 November 2010.
This meeting will include 2 full days of general COAST meeting and 1 full day workshop on the comparability criteria (Annex V in the IC guidance).
Draft agenda:
9 November
morning: general plenary meeting (consistency check 1st phase, new technical report chapters, WISER project results, other issues)
afternoon: parallel sessions for GIG meetings (1.Baltic Sea – 2.NEA – 3.Mediterranean + Black Sea) to discuss arrangements after ECOSTAT (5-6 October in JRC Ispra) + state-of-art / overview preparation for the comparability criteria workshop of each GIG
10 November
morning: parallel cross-GIG sessions for each BQE (with prepared cross-GIG issues list) on state-of-art / overview preparation for the comparability criteria workshop of each BQE
afternoon: general plenary meeting (reporting from parallel sessions and future tasks)
11 November
workshop on comparability criteria by Sebastian Birk and Nigel Willby: for IC BQE leads and common database analyzers to get used to the proposed way of working with comparability criteria in Annex V of the IC guidance
More information:
Wendy Bonne, wendy.bonne@jrc.ec.europa.eu
Joint Research Centre - European Commission, Institute for Environment and Sustainability (IES)
Download .ics
International Conference on Biodiversity and Climate Change November 17-19, Manila, Philippines
The Conference will be held in Manila, the Philippines on November 17-19, 2010. It will serve as a venue for the sharing of knowledge and information on the two-way interactions of biodiversity and climate change and for identifying strategies and actions to conserve biodiversity focusing on the Asia Pacific Region.
More info: www.icbdcc.com/
Download .ics
The Global Water System Project (GWSP) is holding a Conference of the Global Catchment Initiative (GCI) by the title: "The Global Dimensions of Change in River Basins - Threats, Linkages and Adaptation” 6 – 8 December 2010 at the University Club in Bonn, Germany.
For more information visit the website: www.gwsp.org/66.html
Download .ics
Past events
Workshop: "Conceptual Modelling"
The workshop "Conceptual Modelling" was held 16-18 November at ALTERRA Green World Research in Wageningen (NL).
Ecological restoration is often based on basic ecological assumptions and evidence from empirical studies on the general relationships between biota and its abiotic environment. But all too often practical experience with restoration measures in aquatic ecosystems do not have the desired or anticipated effects. Hypotheses on the reasons are manifold and should be addressed by scientists to link restoration ecology with restoration practice.
The WISER Workshop on Conceptual Modelling of the biological response of management of aquatic ecosystems aimed at identifying those linkages based on evidence from restoration literature. Altogether 20 scientists and water managers met to develop and discuss examples for river and lake ecosystems. The outcome will help to identify quantifiable relationships between restoration measures and different plant and animal organism groups. Existing knowledge gaps will be summarised and defined as future research needs to render ecological restoration more effective and efficient.
WISER kick-off meeting
The WISER kick-off meeting (9-13 March 2009) was attended by more than 100 scientists and water managers from 18 European countries. The WISER consortium agreed on the details of the project's field sampling campaign, which will cover fish, invertebrates, plants and plankton in 27 European lakes and eight coastal areas. In addition, existing data from a multitude of databases will be used to develop new methods to better assess the ecological state of European lakes and coastal waters and how they recover from degradation.
