ISEO project (Improving the lake Status from Eutrophy towards Oligotrophy) started on April 2016 and will last for 3 years. It is funded by Fondazione Cariplo (Call 2015: Research on water pollution and aimed at a correct water resource management) The Research group is made up of 4 different interdisciplinary organizations and is coordinated by Marco Pilotti from Università degli Studi di Brescia.

The case studied is Lake Iseo, a deep and large pre-alpine lake located in the northern part of Italy. During the second half of the 20th century it underwent a dramatic deterioration of water quality, with a transition from oligotrophic to an eutrophic condition. As a result, the oxygen content of the bottom waters has decreased from 9 mg/l (in 1967) to zero from mid 1995s till mid 2000s. In order to stop this negative evolution, the main objective of the ISEO project is the identification and quantitative assessment of the synergic effects on the water quality of local pressures, in the watershed and along the shoreline, and global warming, pursuing the following five aims:
(1)  to  measure  the  most  relevant  phosphorous (P) inputs  to  the  lake  and  to  evaluate  P  pollution  potential  of  the different anthropic activities in the watershed.
(2)  to  map  and  evaluate  the  ecological  features  of  SAV  meadows,;
(3) to understand the lake circulation and its effect on the lake actual water renewal time, that controls the residence of nutrients in the hypolimnion.
(4)  to  identify  innovative  and  effective  management  strategies,  on  the  basis  of  the  results  of  the monitoring and modeling activity.
(5) to set up a synoptic monitoring system of the lake, in order to detect acute pollution events, control the potential occurrence of algal bloom and provide distributed satellite data that can be fundamental for the research issues.

A description of the activies are synthetized in this poster.