PhD defence

Assessing global regionalized impacts of eutrophication on freshwater fish biodiversity

• J. Zhou

Date

Tuesday 30 January 2024

Time

10:00 - 10:45 hour

Address

Academy Building
Rapenburg 73
2311 GJ Leiden

Supervisor(s)

• Prof.dr.ir. P.M. van Bodegom
• dr. J.M. Mogollón
• dr. L.A. Scherer

Summary

Freshwater biodiversity has been threatened by eutrophication due to excessive nutrients in the environment. Releasing the freshwater species from such pressures requires efforts from industry and manufacturers to avoid emissions to vulnerable and high-risk regions. The first step is to know which nutrient influences where and the effects thereof on species loss. These impacts can be assessed by methods of life cycle impact assessment (LCIA). This thesis contributes to such knowledge by improving the LCIA method, for instance, by developing more regionalized and comprehensive indicators as well as adding the consideration of both phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N) and which of these two nutrients is limiting.
This thesis advances the understanding of 1) the nutrient fate and effect of N that also plays an important role in freshwater eutrophication, 2) the improvement of accuracy of global nutrient predictions through choosing the best-fit retention models, 3) the relationship between potential species loss and nutrient content at freshwater ecoregion level, 4) the improvement in regionalization of FFs, EFs, and CFs, and 5) the severeness of freshwater fish species richness as affected by eutrophication globally (13.8% species richness loss). The thesis, therefore, provides insight into the freshwater eutrophication impact on biodiversity loss. It also proposes methods for future research to assess eutrophication-related impact in terrestrial and marine ecosystems, and can support the stakeholders to mitigate eutrophication-induced biodiversity loss and support decision-makers to formulate the environmental strategies that relate to Sustainable Development Goals 6.3 and 15.1 and Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework target 7.

PhD dissertations

Approximately one week after the defence, PhD dissertations by Leiden PhD students are available digitally through the Leiden Repository, that offers free access to these PhD dissertations. Please note that in some cases a dissertation may be under embargo temporarily and access to its full-text version will only be granted later.

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