The cascade effect of flooding-drought cycles on aquatic ecosystems

Aquatic ecosystems are facing increasing pressures from anthropogenic and climate drivers, causing alarming deterioration in freshwater quality. Climate extremes are projected to increase (e.g. floods and droughts) in terms of duration, intensity and frequency influencing nutrient status and altering hydrological regimes. However, it is rare these events occur in isolation in real-time, for example with flooding events happening post drought, resulting in cascading environmental impacts, which are poorly understood across both temporal and spatial scales (Mishra et al., 2021). Often experiments focus on individual drivers rather than compounding events due to their complex interactions. Here we will take reactive, in-situ and experimental sampling approaches to elucidate the mechanisms of these more natural events. This project will combine field and laboratory work to assess water quality parameters, using state-of-the art chemical and biological techniques, under flood-drought scenarios to assess the ecological responses to cascading events.