The central objective of the EU project, EMERGE (European Mountain lake Ecosystems: regionalisation, diagnostic & socio-economic evaluation) was to comprehensively evaluate the status of remote mountain lake ecosystems across Europe. At its core, EMERGE oversaw a biological survey carried out on more than 350 lakes covering most European ranges from Finland to Spain, and from Scotland to Slovakia. The survey used common sampling protocols and a large number of biological groups and environmental variables were measured, including water column, littoral and sediment habitats.
This special issue presents a number of studies which examine the planktonic environment, the littoral and benthic zones, the indicative value of lake sediments for assessments of ecological status and several integrated regional assessments.