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This study highlights how Chinese economic development detrimentally impacted water quality in recent decades and how this has been improved by enormous investment in environmental remediation funded by the Chinese government. To our knowledge, this study is the first to describe the variability of surface water quality in inland waters in China, the affecting drivers behind the changes, and how the government-financed conservation actions have impacted water quality. Water quality was found to be poorest in the North and the Northeast China Plain where there is greater coverage of developed land (cities + cropland), a higher gross domestic product (GDP), and higher population density. There are significant positive relationships between the concentration of the annual mean chemical oxygen demand (COD) and the percentage of developed land use (cities + cropland), GDP, and population density in the individual watersheds (p < 0.001). During the past decade, following Chinese government-financed investments in environmental restoration and reforestation, the water quality of Chinese inland waters has improved markedly, which is particularly evident from the significant and exponentially decreasing GDP-normalized COD and ammonium (NH4+-N) concentrations. It is evident that the increasing GDP in China over the past decade did not occur at the continued expense of its inland water ecosystems. This offers hope for the future, also for other industrializing countries, that with appropriate environmental investments a high GDP can be reached and maintained, while simultaneously preserving inland aquatic ecosystems, particularly through management of sewage discharge.

This study highlights how Chinese economic development detrimentally impacted water quality in recent decades and how this has been improved by enormous investment in environmental remediation funded by the Chinese government. To our knowledge, this study is the first to describe the variability of surface water quality in inland waters in China, the affecting drivers behind the changes, and how the government-financed conservation actions have impacted water quality. Water quality was found to be poorest in the North and the Northeast China Plain where there is greater coverage of developed land (cities + cropland), a higher gross domestic product (GDP), and higher population density. There are significant positive relationships between the concentration of the annual mean chemical oxygen demand (COD) and the percentage of developed land use (cities + cropland), GDP, and population density in the individual watersheds (p < 0.001). During the past decade, following Chinese government-financed investments in environmental restoration and reforestation, the water quality of Chinese inland waters has improved markedly, which is particularly evident from the significant and exponentially decreasing GDP-normalized COD and ammonium (NH4+-N) concentrations. It is evident that the increasing GDP in China over the past decade did not occur at the continued expense of its inland water ecosystems. This offers hope for the future, also for other industrializing countries, that with appropriate environmental investments a high GDP can be reached and maintained, while simultaneously preserving inland aquatic ecosystems, particularly through management of sewage discharge.

As the largest renewable electricity source, hydropower represents an alternative to fossil fuels to achieve a low-carbon future. However, increasing evidence suggests that hydropower reservoirs are an important source of biogenic greenhouse gases (GHGs), albeit with large uncertainties. Combining spatially resolved assessments of GHG fluxes and hydroelectric capacity databases, we assessed that global GHG emissions from reservoirs is 0.38 Pg CO2 eq.yr−1, accounting for 1.0% of global anthropogenic emissions. The median carbon intensity for hydropower is ∼63.0 kg CO2eq. MWh−1, which is lower than that for fossil fuels, but higher than that for other renewable energy sources. High carbon intensity is mostly linked to shallow (water storage depth <20 m) and eutrophic reservoirs. Furthermore, we found that the reservoir carbon intensity (CI) value would be markedly increased to 131.5 kg CO2eq. MWh−1 when considering the dams under construction and planning. A low-carbon future will benefit from optimal dam planning and management measures, i.e., applying sludge removal treatments, thereby reducing the proportion of shallow reservoirs and anthropogenic pollution.

As the largest renewable electricity source, hydropower represents an alternative to fossil fuels to achieve a low-carbon future. However, increasing evidence suggests that hydropower reservoirs are an important source of biogenic greenhouse gases (GHGs), albeit with large uncertainties. Combining spatially resolved assessments of GHG fluxes and hydroelectric capacity databases, we assessed that global GHG emissions from reservoirs is 0.38 Pg CO2 eq.yr−1, accounting for 1.0% of global anthropogenic emissions. The median carbon intensity for hydropower is ∼63.0 kg CO2eq. MWh−1, which is lower than that for fossil fuels, but higher than that for other renewable energy sources. High carbon intensity is mostly linked to shallow (water storage depth <20 m) and eutrophic reservoirs. Furthermore, we found that the reservoir carbon intensity (CI) value would be markedly increased to 131.5 kg CO2eq. MWh−1 when considering the dams under construction and planning. A low-carbon future will benefit from optimal dam planning and management measures, i.e., applying sludge removal treatments, thereby reducing the proportion of shallow reservoirs and anthropogenic pollution.

Current policies of habitat conservation, recovery, and management are strongly biased in favour of terrestrial systems, being poorly applicable to marine environments. A sound habitat classification, leading to spatially explicit accounts on the distribution of marine habitats and communities, is a prerequisite to identify conservation priorities, based on appropriate methods for assessing habitat sensitivity to human disturbance, aimed at preventing habitat loss. The ten major European marine habitat classifications, recognizing a total of 1121 marine habitats, have been here revised, and their major differences have been formally tested in terms of multivariate dissimilarity. Mediterranean-based classifications resulted rather uniform, their habitats forming a separate cluster from the rest of European ones; these differences might be due to either distinct ecological features, or to divergences in the way habitats are classified. Either too vague or too detailed classifications, leading to cumbersome appreciations of biodiversity at habitat level, fail to provide proper tools for the conservation and management of marine environments. Different species assemblages can inhabit the same habitat type, representing the well-know natural variability that, at large scale, should not affect the appreciation of habitat distribution. Intra-habitat natural variability, in fact, causes a misleading qualitative interpretation of small-scale biodiversity distribution. Mediterranean classifications have been integrated and simplified by identifying habitats according to explicit criteria: level on the shore, type of primary substrate, presence of bioconstructors, presence of habitat formers, presence of ecosystem engineers. The motivating idea is to limit the current emphasis on spatial dominance as the only criteria for the introduction of species, assemblages, and habitats in the lists, towards a clearer recognition of the structural and functional role of biodiversity. The reduction of previous classifications to a list of 94 Mediterranean marine habitat types represents an initial attempt at providing a simple and flexible tool for the evaluation of biodiversity at habitat level, leading to more feasible conservation measures, potentially extendable at European scale. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Current policies of habitat conservation, recovery, and management are strongly biased in favour of terrestrial systems, being poorly applicable to marine environments. A sound habitat classification, leading to spatially explicit accounts on the distribution of marine habitats and communities, is a prerequisite to identify conservation priorities, based on appropriate methods for assessing habitat sensitivity to human disturbance, aimed at preventing habitat loss. The ten major European marine habitat classifications, recognizing a total of 1121 marine habitats, have been here revised, and their major differences have been formally tested in terms of multivariate dissimilarity. Mediterranean-based classifications resulted rather uniform, their habitats forming a separate cluster from the rest of European ones; these differences might be due to either distinct ecological features, or to divergences in the way habitats are classified. Either too vague or too detailed classifications, leading to cumbersome appreciations of biodiversity at habitat level, fail to provide proper tools for the conservation and management of marine environments. Different species assemblages can inhabit the same habitat type, representing the well-know natural variability that, at large scale, should not affect the appreciation of habitat distribution. Intra-habitat natural variability, in fact, causes a misleading qualitative interpretation of small-scale biodiversity distribution. Mediterranean classifications have been integrated and simplified by identifying habitats according to explicit criteria: level on the shore, type of primary substrate, presence of bioconstructors, presence of habitat formers, presence of ecosystem engineers. The motivating idea is to limit the current emphasis on spatial dominance as the only criteria for the introduction of species, assemblages, and habitats in the lists, towards a clearer recognition of the structural and functional role of biodiversity. The reduction of previous classifications to a list of 94 Mediterranean marine habitat types represents an initial attempt at providing a simple and flexible tool for the evaluation of biodiversity at habitat level, leading to more feasible conservation measures, potentially extendable at European scale.

Current policies of habitat conservation, recovery, and management are strongly biased in favour of terrestrial systems, being poorly applicable to marine environments. A sound habitat classification, leading to spatially explicit accounts on the distribution of marine habitats and communities, is a prerequisite to identify conservation priorities, based on appropriate methods for assessing habitat sensitivity to human disturbance, aimed at preventing habitat loss. The ten major European marine habitat classifications, recognizing a total of 1121 marine habitats, have been here revised, and their major differences have been formally tested in terms of multivariate dissimilarity. Mediterranean-based classifications resulted rather uniform, their habitats forming a separate cluster from the rest of European ones; these differences might be due to either distinct ecological features, or to divergences in the way habitats are classified. Either too vague or too detailed classifications, leading to cumbersome appreciations of biodiversity at habitat level, fail to provide proper tools for the conservation and management of marine environments. Different species assemblages can inhabit the same habitat type, representing the well-know natural variability that, at large scale, should not affect the appreciation of habitat distribution. Intra-habitat natural variability, in fact, causes a misleading qualitative interpretation of small-scale biodiversity distribution. Mediterranean classifications have been integrated and simplified by identifying habitats according to explicit criteria: level on the shore, type of primary substrate, presence of bioconstructors, presence of habitat formers, presence of ecosystem engineers. The motivating idea is to limit the current emphasis on spatial dominance as the only criteria for the introduction of species, assemblages, and habitats in the lists, towards a clearer recognition of the structural and functional role of biodiversity. The reduction of previous classifications to a list of 94 Mediterranean marine habitat types represents an initial attempt at providing a simple and flexible tool for the evaluation of biodiversity at habitat level, leading to more feasible conservation measures, potentially extendable at European scale. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Current policies of habitat conservation, recovery, and management are strongly biased in favour of terrestrial systems, being poorly applicable to marine environments. A sound habitat classification, leading to spatially explicit accounts on the distribution of marine habitats and communities, is a prerequisite to identify conservation priorities, based on appropriate methods for assessing habitat sensitivity to human disturbance, aimed at preventing habitat loss. The ten major European marine habitat classifications, recognizing a total of 1121 marine habitats, have been here revised, and their major differences have been formally tested in terms of multivariate dissimilarity. Mediterranean-based classifications resulted rather uniform, their habitats forming a separate cluster from the rest of European ones; these differences might be due to either distinct ecological features, or to divergences in the way habitats are classified. Either too vague or too detailed classifications, leading to cumbersome appreciations of biodiversity at habitat level, fail to provide proper tools for the conservation and management of marine environments. Different species assemblages can inhabit the same habitat type, representing the well-know natural variability that, at large scale, should not affect the appreciation of habitat distribution. Intra-habitat natural variability, in fact, causes a misleading qualitative interpretation of small-scale biodiversity distribution. Mediterranean classifications have been integrated and simplified by identifying habitats according to explicit criteria: level on the shore, type of primary substrate, presence of bioconstructors, presence of habitat formers, presence of ecosystem engineers. The motivating idea is to limit the current emphasis on spatial dominance as the only criteria for the introduction of species, assemblages, and habitats in the lists, towards a clearer recognition of the structural and functional role of biodiversity. The reduction of previous classifications to a list of 94 Mediterranean marine habitat types represents an initial attempt at providing a simple and flexible tool for the evaluation of biodiversity at habitat level, leading to more feasible conservation measures, potentially extendable at European scale.

The majority of Hydrozoa is represented by not readily noticeable, small species. In recent decades, however, taxonomic knowledge of the group has increased worldwide, with a significant number of investigations focused on the Mediterranean Sea. Over more than two decades, 115 species of hydrozoans were recorded from coastal waters along nearly 300 km of the Salento Peninsula (Apulia, Italy). For each species, records from different collections were merged into single sheets of a general database. For each species, the following information is reported: description, cnidome, biology, occurrence in Salento, worldwide distribution, and bibliography. Descriptions refer to the benthic hydroid stage and, when present, also to the planktonic medusa stage. The 115 species of Hydrozoa, recorded along the Salento coastline, represent 25% of the Mediterranean Hydrozoa fauna (totaling 461 species), and nearly 3% of 3,702 world's known species covered in a recent monograph. Four species are non-indigenous, three of them with invasive behavior (Clytia hummelincki, Clytia linearis, and Eudendrium carneum), and one species now very common (Eudendrium merulum) in Salento. The complete life cycle of Clytia paulensis (Vanhöffen, 1910) is described for the first time.