Natural ponds crucial for both biodiversity and climate

PONDERFUL: POND ECOSYSTEMS FOR RESILIENT FUTURE LANDSCAPES IN A CHANGING CLIMATE

Ponds and “pondscapes” (networks of ponds) are crucial for biodiversity conservation and their multiple societally beneficial ecosystem services (ES) provide the means to play a crucial role in mitigating and adapting to climate change. However, ponds are largely neglected in water- and nature-related policies and there is insufficient knowledge on how to manage and restore ponds to maximize nature-based solutions (NBS) to increase resilience of ecosystems and society to climate change. The overarching objective of PONDERFUL is to generate and integrate biodiversity, ecosystems, social, economic and policy knowledge to design and implement evidence-based, nature-based strategies using pondscapes for mitigation and adaptation to climate change. To achieve this, PONDERFUL will: 1) evaluate the interactions and feedbacks between biodiversity, ES and climate in pondscapes at multiple spatial scales; 2) together with stakeholders, develop future scenarios for pondscapes in EU and CELAC in the context of climate change, land use change, and changed policies on pond restoration and management; 3) develop and promote the implementation of effective multifunctional NBS in close collaboration with the stakeholders using pondscapes in EU and CELAC landscapes to maximize biodiversity conservation and mitigate and adapt to climate change; 4) develop a sustainable finance and investment guide for NBS, in collaboration with regional managers; 5) assess the potential for large-scale implementation of the proposed pondscape-based enhanced resilience to climate change from local management strategies to EU policies in relation to existing barriers, instruments, financing and other enabling factors. Ultimately, the stakeholder-oriented approach adopted by PONDERFUL will ensure that the scientific knowledge produced on the benefits of using pondscapes as climate change mitigation and adaptation ecosystems is explicitly considered in decision making from local management to EU policies.