In this presentation, we will provide a comprehensive overview of the present environmental state and on future trends for more than 160 catchments in Europe, including Western Russia, the Caucasus, and Anatolia. These catchments cover a total area of 8 million km2 (72% of the entire continent, respectively). We combined information on land use (proportion of developed area), river fragmentation, water stress, and proportion of exotic fish species to calculate an anthropogenic impact index for each catchment.
More than 75% of the European catchments can be classified as heavily impacted; thereby threatening freshwater biodiversity. We present biodiversity data on fish, amphibians, wetland birds, odonata, and crayfish. For example, only 2 out of 400 native freshwater species are reported extinct at the continental scale, however, at the catchments scale up to 40% of the former fish richness already disappeared; at the subcatchment scale the proportion can be as high as 75%. On the other hand, the proportion of non native fish species can exceed 40% in some catchments.
The highest proportion of irreplaceable species, i.e. species with a limited geographic distribution, can be found in catchments of the Iberian peninsula, the southern Balkan, and Anatolia. These are at the same time the regions that will face the highest human pressure in the near future. We discuss strategies on how to define priorities for the future conservation of the European freshwater fauna, e.g. by focusing on key ecosystem types and key biogeographic areas.