Palaeolimnological studies of Central European Lakes within the EU Project EULAKES

One of the major goals of the project EuLakes (European Lakes Under Environmental Stressors, Supporting lake governance to mitigate the impact of climate change, Reg. N. 2CE243P3), launched in April 2010 within the Central European Initiative, consists in the assessment of ecological status and future vulnerability of large European Lakes of high socio-economic relevance, respect to both large scale (i.e. climate change) and local scale (i.e. land use, tourism) environmental changes. The international consortium comprises four lakes of different morphology and prevalent human uses: Garda (I), Neusiedl (A), Balaton (HU), and Charzykowskie (PL). Although multi-decadal limnological records are available for some European lakes, they are usually too short to provide the full time perspective needed for addressing the question of combined effects of human stressors (e.g. nutrients, heavy metals, pesticides) and climate change. Lake sediment records offer a complementary source of information, thus representing a powerful tool for the reconstruction of secular lake ecological status. Palaeolimnoliogical investigations are being carried out at the four EuLakes lakes aiming at extending the time span of lake ecological records back in the past, and at defining reference conditions and restoration targets according to the WFD 60/2000. Beside basic geo-chemical proxies (i.e. water, inorganic and organic content, radionuclides, ash particles), algal remains (i.e. algal pigments, cyanobacteria akinetes, and diatoms) are being analysed in short sediment cores from each of the project lakes. Palaeolimnological results will be combined with data from regional monitoring programmes and results from other project WPs. This contribution presents a methodological overview, and palaeolimnological results obtained so far for the brackish Lake Neusiedl, with focus on the evolution of lake ecological status as showed by changes in diatom assemblages observed since the end of the “vanished lake” stage (1865-1871).