Objective The objective is to compare the effects of air pollution in remote mountain lakes in the Alpine mountains with those of other susceptible mountain areas in Scandinavia, Scotland and the Pyrenees, in order to: identify critical sulphur and nitrogen loads; recommend target loads for susceptible lake ecosystems; explore the possibility of their use as early indicators of changes in atmospheric loads; and to develop integrated management strategies for susceptible aquatic ecosystems in Europe.Some of the most interesting conclusions from the discussion of the results concern the similarities of sites in these various mountain regions of Europe. Similarities are apparent at all levels, in water chemistry, paleolimnology, invertebrates and fish. This reflects a similar response of the biological communities to a common physico-chemical environment in these remote areas, and is of high importance for the programme with regard to future work in the follow-up project 'AL:PE 2'. An important achievement of the AL:PE project has been the standardization of working methods and the establishment of intercalibration procedures during this cooperative research, as well as the exchange of expertise between research groups. This secures the quality of data across the programme and allows robust comparability of results at a European level. The results confirm that acidification is a widespread problem in Europe, and that acidification processes are not restricted to lakes and rivers close to densely populated areas, where short-range impacts from local activities may be expected. The findings demonstrate that remote mountain areas are affected by acid deposition through long-range transported air pollution.This project represents an extension of an ongoing project on acidification processes in Alpine lakes (contracts EV4V-0113 and EV4V-0114) on the geographical scale towards the investigation of Scandinavian, Scottish and Pyreneen mountain lakes. It intends to improve the knowledge about the amounts and quality of atmospheric inputs into the various mountain areas and will investigate important catchment and in lake processes, covering water chemistry, fish, invertebrate and epilithic diatom communities status, sediment core analyses and other paleolimnological approaches. The project will investigate field sites in Norway, Scotland, the Italian, Swiss, Austrian and French Alps and the French part of the Pyrenees. Fields of science engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringair pollution engineeringnatural sciencesearth and related environmental sciencesenvironmental sciencespollutionnatural sciencesbiological sciencesecologyecosystemsnatural sciencesearth and related environmental scienceshydrologylimnologynatural sciencesbiological scienceszoologyinvertebrate zoology Programme(s) FP2-STEP - Two specific research and technological development programmes (EEC) in the field of the environment STEP/EPOCH - STEP -, 1989-1992 Topic(s) Data not available Call for proposal Data not available Funding Scheme CSC - Cost-sharing contracts Coordinator Birkbeck College, University of London EU contribution No data Address Malet Street, Bloomsbury WC1E 7HX London United Kingdom See on map Total cost No data Participants (6) Sort alphabetically Sort by EU Contribution Expand all Collapse all Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) France EU contribution No data Address Place du Docteur Peyneau 33120 Arcachon See on map Total cost No data Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR) Italy EU contribution No data Address Piazzale Aldo Moro 7 00185 Roma See on map Total cost No data NORWEGIAN INSTITUTE FOR WATER RESEARCH Norway EU contribution No data Address 19,Brekkeveien 19 0411 Oslo See on map Links Website Opens in new window Total cost No data Provincia Autonoma di Bolzano Regione Alto Adige Italy EU contribution No data Address Via Mendola 24 39100 Bolzano See on map Total cost No data University of Bergen Norway EU contribution No data Address 5007 Bergen See on map Total cost No data Université de Savoie France EU contribution No data Address Campus Scientifique 73376 Le Bourget-du-Lac See on map Total cost No data
