Rivers breathe, and a new sensor network aims to measure that breath across six countries, from the tropics to the Alps. Current river health checks rely on chemical snapshots that miss how aquatic ecosystems actually function. This project builds a River Observation System (RIOS) that continuously tracks dissolved oxygen levels—the river's metabolic signature—to calculate how much carbon a river absorbs, how well it filters pollutants, and whether it can support fish and invertebrates. The gap is that existing indicators are hard to translate into ecosystem services, which policymakers now need for EU and global regulations. If successful, BREATHE will give water managers a practical tool to quantify services like climate regulation and water purification in real time. That could change how rivers are monitored and managed, from local catchment decisions to international trans-boundary cooperation. The system is being co-designed with stakeholders across a latitudinal gradient, so the workflow should work in both alpine streams and neotropical rivers. The result would be a standardised, scalable way to turn oxygen data into policy-relevant metrics—something current monitoring systems cannot do.
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Rationale. Current indicators used in national river health assessment systems (e.g. EU WFD) do not reflect well the structure and function of aquatic ecosystems and are very difficult to translate into aquatic ecosystem services as needed for new EU and global policies. Vision. BREATHE's main objective is to co-design with stakeholders a multiscale (river basin to global) sensor-based River Observation System (RIOS) including dissolved oxygen and whole river metabolism to quantify aquatic ecosystem services such as climate regulation, water purification, and habitat suitability. Action. BREATHE will co-design a workflow from data sources to oxygen indicators, river functions and aquatic ecosystem services. BREATHE will work in six countries across a latitudinal and elevational gradient spanning neotropical to alpine climate. Relevance to the call BREATHE addresses Theme II of Water4All Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA) 2022-2025, notably Theme II.I Functioning and Biodiversity, II.II Resilience, mitigation and adaptation of aquatic ecosystems and ecosystem services to global changes. BREATHE will provide tools for water management (Sustainable water management Theme III.V), including trans-boundary cooperation (International cooperation Theme VI.II) and enhancing the regulatory framework (Governance Theme VII.III). BREATHE will address the river basin scale perspective in the co-design of river observation systems and coconstruction of case studies. BREATHE's main goal is to establish an international River Observation System and thus responds mostly to Topic 1. Mapping, monitoring, and assessment for a better understanding of ecosystem services [...], and more specifically 1.2 Supporting a transnational network of harmonised monitoring schemes building upon the work conducted under other initiatives and previous EU projects. BREATHE will develop a workflow from data sources to river functions and indices to ecosystem services for policies, integrating a modelling component and case studies with multiple stressors, thus responding to Topic 2. In particular, BREATHE will use advanced methods and techniques to characterise the response of rivers to multiple pressures, provide mechanistic understanding, and predict the consequences of these impacts - response relationships on ecosystem services (tackling Topics 2.3 and 2.4). BREATHE will provide new tools and solutions (see WP2) which can be used to better integrate ecosystem services into the management of water resources (Topic 3, notably 3.1 Innovative management and governance strategies for integrating ecosystem services into conservation policies and restoration measures).
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