RIPPLE

Infrastructure and User Services  

Equipment/facilities/data:  

RIPPLE integrates and upgrades four major experimental mesocosm facilities that are key national assets for aquatic ecology in the Netherlands. These mesocosm facilities are based at NIOO-KNAW, LEI, RU and WUR ( see mesocosm.org) and have been developed over several decades of research and development, each targetting different but complementary aspects of aquatic ecosystems. Each facility has a proven track record of delivering internationally excellent aquatic research. RIPPLE brings all Dutch freshwater aquatic mesocosm facilities and data science experts together to provide a national facility with integrated goals. In the future, the facility aims to (a) continuously upgrade with new and SMART (self-monitoring, analysis and reporting) technologies including sensors, improved heating and cooling systems, automated samplers and linked analytical techniques to keep pace with the latest developments; and (b) ensure that the latest data science techniques are integrated into the facilities.  

Services to users  

New access policies will broaden the use of the facilities and standardization of data pipelines will structurally improve open science and FAIR data. The services to users from academia, governmental organizations and industry will include (a) the use of facilities to conduct experiments at individual or multiple institutions, (b) access to a FAIR database of mesocosm experiments, (c) access to analytical pipelines for aquatic techniques (d) improved data screening and processing including AI techniques.   

Examples/description of the type of research  

The long-term vision of RIPPLE is to improve aquatic ecosystem prediction in a changing world and to address a lack of mechanistic understanding of aquatic ecosystem processes and their responses to environmental change. RIPPLE conducts replicated experiments in aquatic enclosures to allow future scenarios of environmental change to be tested. The infrastructure spans the entire breadth of mesocosm approaches from laboratory-controlled microcosms to quasi-natural systems, from pelagic to sediment- water to land- water interfaces. Experiments allow us to test how multiple stressors including floods, droughts, climate warming, chronic nutrient pollution, and novel pollutants interactively influence water quality and associated ecosystem (dis)services such as water purification, biodiversity havens, carbon sequestration, toxic cyanobacterial blooms, and greenhouse gas production. Through the experimental simulation of future scenarios, mesocosms are a critical tool for supporting our ability to predict aquatic futures. The increasing application of sensors and SMART technologies (including data processing) are enabling researchers to go beyond simply monitoring experimental effects (what is there?) towards understanding processes from species to ecosystem level (what is it doing?). This combined quantitative understanding of aquatic processes within mini-ecosystems (mesocosms) provides a way forward to: 

1. Experimentally create and test effects of future “unknown” aquatic scenarios (e.g. climate, novel pollutants); 
2. Improve estimates of aquatic processes for better predictive ecosystem models; 
3. Apply more predictable interventions to improve water quality,  aquatic biodiversity and ecosystem service provisioning. 

How to access the infrastructure?  

We build on the access policies of the EU AQUACOSM projects which enabled transnational access to European mesocosm facilities including the NIOO-KNAW Limnotrons. Physical access to conduct experiments will be the dominant mode of access. RIPPLE plans to host the AQUACOSM metadata catalogue for FAIRification of past mesocosm experiments (digital access). We have piloted real-time access to mesocosm sensor data via a data dashboard (remote access) and want to develop this further. Because these activities can run in parallel we are not able to assign an estimated percentage of use.