Impact of Climatic Extremes on Lakes and Reservoirs (ICELAR)

With extreme climatic events trends projected to increase in the coming years, understanding how lakes and reservoirs will be impacted is important. Droughts in particular are an example of an extreme event that has the potential to severely affect the functioning of these aquatic ecosystems. Given that lakes and reservoirs offer human communities a number of ecosystem services, or valuable goods and processes, tracing the way in which these extreme droughts can impair service provision will be necessary for developing management plans. Our research group is conducting a literature review to assess current available knowledge linking extreme drought events with their impact on select ecosystem services in lakes and reservoir systems. Findings will help assist in outlining the pathways in which the ecosystem services are affected in lake vs. reservoir systems.