News

Water is misused as a weapon when infrastructure and water resources are deliberately destroyed in armed conflicts. Water resources and infrastructure are also affected by the ongoing armed conflict in Ukraine: In June 2023, the Kakhovka Dam, which held water from one of Europe's largest reservoirs, collapsed as a result of military damage. Researchers led by the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB) have now published a study on the ecological consequences of the dam collapse in the journal Science.

The Panama Canal is a busy maritime route, with 14,000 ships passing through it every year. But this canal is also a potential pathway for the spread of non- native fishes from one ocean to another. Researchers at the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB), Freie Universität Berlin, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama and Harvard University have now compared the fish communities of Lake Gatun in the Panama Canal aquatic corridor before and after the canal’s expansion in 2016.

Floodplains can store and purify water. A team led by the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB), in close cooperation with the Lower Oder Valley National Park, has investigated the role of the Oder's extensive floodplains for the water balance and the turnover of nutrients and pollutants. The results indicate that a permanent opening of the flooding weirs could be beneficial in order to keep at least some of the floodplains in contact with the river for longer periods of the year and maintain their important function.

Diverse and well-connected habitats in floodplains are essential for maintaining or restoring stable fish communities and high species diversity. This is the result of a study by researchers from Wageningen University and Research in the Netherlands and the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB). They analysed the habitat use of larval and juvenile fishes in the lower river Rhine by collecting data on more than 1.4 million larvae and young fish in 18 restored floodplains.

Germany's rivers and their floodplains are important resources for us humans and valuable habitats for animals and plants. However, their ecosystem services are being jeopardised by advancing man-made climate change and the ever-increasing pressure of water use. River revitalisation is therefore an important strategic, long-term investment in the future that should not be put on the back burner by politicians and authorities, even in times of economic and security policy challenges. Researchers from the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB) emphas

A new IGB Dossier shows options for action for policy-makers and authorities at the nutrient-polluted Lake Arendsee.

The brackish lagoons around the German island of Rügen in the southern Baltic Sea are known as outstanding fishing areas, especially for large pike. However, pike catches and catch sizes have been declining for several years.  There are many reasons for this: loss of spawning grounds, decline in nutrition, increased natural mortality due to cormorants and other natural predators, climate change and overfishing.

In the vast, open ocean with no place to hide, sardines group together for protection. When they cannot rely on speed to escape, the sardines’ best chance is to outmaneuver the predator altogether. However, predators also seek ways to find weak spots in the group’s defence.