Linnaeus lecturers

LINNAEUS LECTURE

Reflected in Water - Development, Resilience, Inequalities

Will future large-scale water resources plans make compelling arguments for the reduction of the loss of biodiversity in fluvial landscapes? Is the structure of river networks a template for large-scale spread of waterborne disease infections? Are we capable to provide solid economic arguments for preventing water development schemes in the light of the social and economic cost of predicted increased burden of disease they would bring? Do biological invasions, including historic population migrations that shaped human community compositions, as we see them today, depend on physical constraints like the waterscape acting as the substrate for their dispersal? Is the concept of catchment metabolism relevant to the above questions?

In this Lecture I will address the role that that social discounting applied to public policies acquires when concerned with the preservation of the natural capital in the fluvial landscape. This demands compelling quantitative assessments. Key to that end is our capability to predict the fate of water controls on living communities stemming from the recognition that the universality of form shown by the fluvial landscape affects decisively the predictability of their function as ecological corridors.

The time is thus ripe to rethink the distributive justice in water resources management, as a path to reduce inequalities on a global scale. When I travel to the South of the world, I see that access to safe water distribution is socially biased, but the ownership of a cell phone is not. When we acknowledge that water management plans may cause loss of biodiversity or foster the spread of poverty-reinforcing disease, we easily account for the GDP impact of improved agriculture but usually fail to put a price tag on the ecosystem services we lose for good, nor to the true social and economic cost of disease. My take is this must change because we now have the right tools – reflected in water.

Here you can read an article about the lecture.

Professor Emeritus Andrea Rinaldo

Andrea Rinaldo (Venice, 1954). Professor of Hydrology and Water Resources at the University of Padua (1984 -2024) and at the École Polytechnique Fédérale Lausanne (2008-2024), >320 journal papers, four books, >32,000 citations. Department Head in three Universities (Trento, Padua, Lausanne).

Research associate: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1993-2001) and Princeton University (2004-2008), Fellow, Hagler Institute of Advanced Studies at Texas A&M University, Inaugural Neal Armstrong Visiting Professor at Purdue University.

Member: the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences; US National Academy of Sciences, US Academy of Engineering, Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. Recognitions include the: Dalton Medal (2006), Prince Sultan Abdulaziz International Water Prize (2010); Horton Medal (2023); Stockholm Water Prize (2023)

Symposia Lecture: The hidden costs of adapting to drought for plants, soil microorganisms, and ecosystems

Most organisms in terrestrial ecosystems face periods of water scarcity. For plants and soil microorganisms, water scarcity occurs when soil moisture decreases to levels impairing their physiological function. Both microorganisms and plants can acclimate or adapt to fluctuating soil moisture conditions—at least in the range they evolved to tolerate—but they can also avoid dry periods by becoming dormant or relying on seed banks to guarantee the species survival. In this seminar, I will discuss the strategies adopted by plants and microorganisms to cope with dry conditions, highlighting how adaptation always comes at a cost—often in terms of reduced metabolic rate and hence growth, or slower recovery when water becomes again available. Thanks to these adaptations, biogeochemical cycling and other associated ecosystem functions are reduced during dry periods, but can also recover at rewetting. However, climatic changes are lengthening dry periods and increasing drought intensity well beyond the ranges organisms can tolerate. How are plant and microbial communities changing in response to these stressors? Can ecosystem functions be maintained in drier conditions? Can we manage ecosystems with less water without incurring in hidden costs as those that plants and microorganisms have to pay to adapt?

Professor Stefano Manzoni

Stefano Manzoni is a professor in ecohydrology at the Department of Physical Geography, Stockholm University. His research interests include hydro-climatic impacts on carbon and nutrient cycling, ecological stoichiometry, soil-vegetation-atmosphere interactions, as well as sustainable resource use and management. His approach leverages process-based, conceptual, and stochastic models of water, carbon, and nutrient cycles, which are tested using local and global datasets. In 2014, he received the AGU Hydrologic Sciences Early Career Award, in recognition of his new theories of soil water-biota interactions, and in 2020 he was awarded a European Research Council consolidator grant to study adaptation of soil microorganism to global change.

Symposia Lecture: The Health Status of Lakes Around the World: A Growing Threat to Humankind?

The human population has now reached 8 billion people all of whom need clean water. Much of this water is stored in approximately 1.4 million lakes ≥ 10 ha around the world. Lakes have a natural beauty, but can their appearance be deceiving? How healthy are they, really? Might there be a threat to humankind when lakes suffer from health issues? And what kind of health issues do lakes suffer from? Here, common lake health issues are outlined and classified using a simple human health-based approach. It is demonstrated that lakes are living systems that are in need of oxygen, clean water, and a balanced energy and nutrient supply, similar to the needs of humans. Because of various anthropogenic stressors, lakes around the world increasingly suffer from various lake health issues, ranging from thermal, circulatory, respiratory, nutritional and metabolic issues to infections and poisoning. Are we able to turn around this trend? What measures are required to be successful? If we fail to act in time, the consequences for ecosystems and human societies might come with big surprises.

Professor Gesa Weyhenmeyer

Gesa Weyhenmeyer is a distinguished professor at Uppsala Univ. and member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences who explores how Earth's diverse and fascinating lake ecosystems respond to the accelerating pace of change in the world. In her research she bridges together biology with geosciences, physics, chemistry, sensor technology, and data science. Weyhenmeyer is actively engaged in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and has a passion to pass on our common responsibility to sustain the ~1.4 million lakes on Earth and frequently communicates this responsibility and newest research results to students, policy-makers, stakeholders and society in general.