The main objectives of the project were to assess the status of remote mountain lake ecosystems throughout Europe following the requirements of the EU Water 
Framework Directive;    
- to provide an evaluation of our findings in ecological, environmental and socio-economic terms;    
- to provide decision makers with an overall understanding of remote mountain lakes so that appropriate policy and management measures can be taken at both 
European and national scales to ensure the sustainability of these ecosystems into t he future. Scientific objectives and approach Most key processes needed 
for modelling and up-scaling are adequately understood, but we need to improve the understanding of the behaviour of trace organic an d trace metal pollutants 
in mountain lake systems:    
- to understand the transport and partitioning of these pollutants in the lakes, including the sedimentary flux, speciation of metals and organics in the 
water column, and fluxes of dissolved substances across the water-sediment interface;    
- to understand how metals and organic pollutants are distributed and accumulate in the food chain, and to assess the physiological responses of fish to pollutants. 
To assess the status of mountain lakes throughout Europe effective up-scaling procedures need to be developed that involve regionalisation methods and the 
use o f both empirical and process-based models to:    
- establish an effective network of lakes in each European mountain Lake District to fulfil three key functions:    
i) individual sites for experiment and long-term reference;    
ii) large numbers of sites for classification and model calibration; and    
iii) small numbers of different sites for model validation and detailed survey;    
- regionalise knowledge on mountain lakes, involving (i) extrapolation of climate parameters and pollutant deposition to all sites; (ii) modelling catchment/lake 
responses to pollutant input and climate/weather forcing, and (iii) surveying and modelling biological relationships with environmental gradients;    
- create a Geographic Information System (GIS) for each Lake District. 
            

Workpackages WP 1, WP 2 and WP 3 of the project were concerned with the physical and chemical factors (both natural and anthropogenic) that set the environmental 
boundaries for life in mountain lakes. In workpackages WP 4 and WP 5 the project focused on biology and aimed to model species distribution and food-web structure 
in relation to environmental gradients. Although much biological data were available for individual sites, information at a regional scale was uneven within 
and between Lake Districts. In order to fulfil the main objective of the project  comparable information along the main geographical and environmental gradients 
within Europe was needed. Consequently a thorough survey  between 10 and 50 lakes in each Lake District was undertaken to assess the distribution of key organisms 
including those that provided a fossil record and thereby allowing changes through time to be inferred. In addition quantitative sampling of bacterioplankton, 
phytoplankton and zooplankton was carried out during the autumn overturn period to assess food-web health.   
   
For each lake in the survey samples for epilithic diatoms, benthic invertebrates, zooplankton, bacterial abundance, chlorophyll a, and water chemistry 
(major ions and nutrients, pH and alkalinity) were taken, and short sediment cores were taken. Two samples (top and bottom) from the sediment cores for diatoms, 
chironomids and pigments were taken. The top sample of the core will be used to represent present conditions and the bottom sample will be used to represent reference 
pre-industrial conditions. Carbonaceous particle fly ash screening was applied to ensure the bottom sample was of pre-industrial age. 
            

Main objectives of the project were to to assess the status of remote mountain lake ecosystems throughout Europe following the requirements of the EU Water 
Framework Directive;    
   
-to provide an evaluation of our findings in ecological, environmental and socio-economic terms;   
   
-to provide decision makers with an overall understanding of remote mountain lakes so that appropriate policy and management measures can be taken at both 
European and national scales to ensure the sustainability of these ecosystems into the future.   
   
The project has generated a number of manuals (pdf documents) which can be downloaded from the project web page, concerning   
•Climatology and Meteorology    
•Atmosferic deposition - Sampling and analysis of direct deposition and snow pack    
•Surface water - sampling and analysis    
•Chemical Analysis of Major Ions and Nutrients    
•Fish ecotoxicology - The EMERGE fish sampling manual for live fish    
•Invertebrate sampling - field and laboratory methods    
•Plankton Food Web - Sampling    
•Microbial pelagic food webs    
•Zooplankton sampling    
•Sediment cores    
•Sediment Cladocera    
•Diatom sampling    
•Sedimentary pigment analysis    
•Spheroid Carbon Particles - SCPs    
•Analysis of organic micropollutants in water, soil, sediments etc    
•Analysis of organic micropollutants in fish    
•Lake sediments - Extraction method of elements soluble in aqua regia    
•Soil sampling and analysis    
•Catchment hydrology    
•Sediment traps    
   
Additionaly the report of workpackage 6 'Remote sensing and spatial modelling of lake/catchment attributes' can be downloaded from the project web page. 
  
   
Furthermore a number of publication references (including a book) are available on the project webpage