Aim To assess the future climatic suitability of European catchments for freshwater species and the future utility of the current network of protected areas. Location Europe. Methods Using recently updated catchment‐scale species data and climate projections from multiple climate models, we assessed the climate change threat by the 2050s for 1648 European freshwater plants, fishes, molluscs, odonates, amphibians, crayfish and turtles for two dispersal scenarios and identified hotspots of change at three spatial scales: major river basins, countries and freshwater ecoregions. We considered both common species and the often overlooked rare species. To set our findings within the context of current and future conservation networks, we evaluated the coverage of freshwater biodiversity by Europe's protected area network. Results Six per cent of common and 77% of rare species are predicted to lose more than 90% of their current range. Eight fish species and nine mollusc species are predicted to experience 100% range loss under climate change. As the most species‐rich group, molluscs are particularly vulnerable due to the high proportion of rare species and their relatively limited ability to disperse. Furthermore, around 50% of molluscs and fish species will have no protected area coverage given their projected distributions. Main conclusions We identified the species most at threat due to projected changes in both catchment suitability and representation within the European protected area network. Our findings suggest an urgent need for freshwater management plans to facilitate adaptation to climate change.

In this article the study design and data sampling of the RIVA project -"Development and Testing of a Robust Indicator System for Ecological Changes in Floodplain Systems" -are described. The project was set up to improve existing approaches to study species environment relationships as a basis for the development of indicator systems and predictive models. Periodically flooded grassland was used as a model system. It is agriculturally used at a level of intermediate intensity and is the major habitat type along the Middle Elbe, Germany. We chose a main study area to analyse species environment relationships and two reference sites for testing the transferability of the results. Using a stratified random sampling scheme, we distributed 36 study plots across the main study site and 12 plots each within the reference sites. In each of the study plots, hydrological and soil variables were measured and plants, molluscs, and carabid beetles were sampled. Hoverflies were collected on a subset of the sampling plots. A brief summary of first results is then provided. IntroductionThe growing need to analyse the present state of ecosystems, to monitor, and to predict their rate of change has triggered a demand for studies that explore species environment relationships and use these relationships for assessing and predicting changes under anthropogenic influence (FOECKLER and BOHLE, 1991;MALTBY et al., 1996;LINDENMAYER, 1999;STATZNER et al., 2001; EEA, 2003;SCHOLZ et al., 2005). The development of indicator systems based on species environment relationships has become a widely used approach for these tasks (SCHUBERT, 1991;MCGEOCH, 1998;STATZNER et al., 2001; DZIOCK et al., 2006). Indicator systems are of special importance for complex ecosystems such as floodplains, which are determined by parameters and processes being difficult to measure directly. There are numerous methodical approaches to study species environment relationships and to Internat. Rev. Hydrobiol. 91 2006 4 292-313

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Based on a literature review, the different approaches to biological indicator systems in floodplains are summarised. Four general categories of bioindication are defined and proposed here: 1. Classification indicators, 2.1 Environmental indicators, 2.2 Biodiversity indicators, 3. Valuation indicators. Furthermore, existing approaches in floodplains are classified according to the four categories. Relevant and widely used approaches in floodplains are explained in more detail. The results of the RIVA project are put into the context of these indication approaches. It is concluded that especially functional assessment approaches using biological traits of the species can be seen as very promising and deserve more attention by conservation biologists and floodplain ecologists. IntroductionThe influence of organic pollution on aquatic organisms is so obvious that these observations have made quite a significant contribution to the development of the idea of bioindication. Aristotle is said to have been the first scientist to point out the connection between organic pollution and changes to aquatic biocoenoses (THIENEMANN, 1959). Then the concept of bioindication arose with work on the saprobic index by KOLKWITZ and MARSSON at the beginning of the 20 th century (CAIRNS and PRATT, 1993). Aquatic organisms have not only been important for devising indicator systems for organic pollution but also for the development of numerous other indicator systems for the condition of rivers, lakes, and canals and for evaluating human impacts on aquatic systems (KNOBEN et al., 1995; STATZ-NER et al., 2001). Today indication is widely used to describe and evaluate environmental conditions and to assess the success of environmental policies with easily recordable indicators.Indicators for complex ecosystems such as floodplains, which are determined by parameters and processes that are difficult to measure directly (e.g. the frequency and duration of inundation), are of special importance (e.g. FOECKLER and BOHLE, 1991;SCHUBERT, 1991;MCGEOCH, 1998;STATZNER et al., 2001; DZIOCK et al., in press