DARKEST Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action completed 2021-2023

A closer look at the health of groundwater resources along coastlines

Coastal aquifers promote characteristic subsurface ecosystems at the world’s land-ocean boundaries and provide water sources for more than one billion people in coastal regions. But they are also prone to effects of climate change and human population growth. What are the drivers of biodiversity in coastal aquifers? How do they respond to environmental change? The EU-funded DARKEST project searched for answers by integrating a global database of subterranean fauna with existing geochemical data and high-resolution hydrogeology maps of the world’s aquifers. Taking a holistic approach, we aimed to bridge scientific disciplines across ecology and geosciences. This approach helped us toward the identification of biological communities that could serve as indicators of the health of groundwater resources. More info: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101031043