Aqualife: a new software as an indicator system for biodiversity in groundwater Ecosystems

The importance of the peculiar GDEs biodiversity and their role in terms of ecosystem services has not been widely recognized. The Project aimed to have an impact on the awareness and on the regulatory level. Therefore the project and software acted as tools for ensuring communication between scientists and managers along with other stakeholders. The software represents an efficient tool to set up coherent policies and rules aimed at achieving a successful GDEs management. It is focused on the analysis both of the conservation priorities and the potential environmental risks assessment, based on the comparison of the tolerance thresholds to pollutants between many freshwater species. The main campaign of dissemination was organized at the end of the project with an International Conference organized by the AQUALIFE team in Italy. Citizens and stakeholders participated in meetings and round tables. Several dissemination actions were done across Italy in national and local environmental agencies, and national and international congresses world-wide. The tool is used by local environmental agencies, also Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA) is willing to use it, as long as private companies. The interest for it is increasing rapidly in the post-life time because people have finally understood the importance of these environments.