As part of the assessment of the ecological status and the pressures and stressors affecting each of the six ProCleanLakes demonstration (Brates, Trichonis, Langvatnetv lakes) and monitoring (Vransko, Medard, Zaghen lakes) sites, a pre-monitoring and sampling campaign took place at each lake between September and November 2024. The campaigns started at Langvatnet Lake in the first week of September to avoid the extremely low temperatures of the Norwegian autumn and winter and completed at Zaghen in Romania in the first week of November.

At each lake, demonstration- and monitoring-responsible partners spent two days in the field measuring basic physicochemical parameters of the water, including pH, temperature, and electrical conductivity. They also took water and sediment samples at different points in the lake, affected and unaffected by pressures and stressors, and sent them to the laboratory of the BOKU University, the Catalan Institute for Water Research and the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice for specific analysis of heavy metals and emerging contaminants such as pharmaceuticals, PAHs, PFAS and microplastics. In addition, a plant survey was carried out on the shores of each lake to be used in the analysis performed by ProCleanLakes partner BC CAS (Biology Centre of Czech Academy of Sciences) for the determination of the native species present at each site.

The information collected during this pre-monitoring and sampling campaign, together with historical data will be used to design nature-based solutions at each demonstration site according to the identified stressors and pressures.