Actes Congrés International "La qualité des eaux de surface" / Proceedings International Congress "Surface waters quality" /Atti Congresso Internazionale "La qualità delle acque si superficie"

Summary The management of freshwater resources is a very complex topic because of the tremendous both economic and political interests involved. While preserving its independence from these interests, research must present fresh waters as a limited resource whose quality must be preserved or restored. The Freshwater Framework Directive 2000/60EC aims at insuring a sustainable management of surfacewater ecosystems. It points out a general interdisciplinary and integrated strategy for evaluating their quality in a landscape and regional context. Hence the recent highlight on innovative experiments and research dealing with the interactions between riparian belts and wetlands on one hand, and the fluvial environments. on the other. Much hydrobiological and limnological research aims at providing means for enhancing the resistance and resilience of ecosystems by increasing their functional efficiency with the help of sustainable socioeconomic policies lead by local authorities. Present urbanisation and anthropisation have a strong impact on the quantitative and qualitative state of water in the natural and irrigation networks, either because of excessive removal or because of the high degree of pollution caused by industrial, agricultural and domestic outflows. In debasing water quality in aquatic ecosystems, pollution makes the use of fresh water impossible owing to the incompatibility between its actual state and that demanded by the legal standards which protect the health of man and that of the whole ecosystem. When masses of water are correctly managed, it ought to be possible to use and reuse them several times for various needs while carefully controlling their chemical and microbiological composition. The scientific information reported in the present volume covers many of the questions mentioned above, discussing them and confronting freshwater ecological, biological, chemical, and microbiological investigations.