Andorra Resumes Field Work on Sentinel Lakes to Track Climate Impacts

Andorra Recerca + Innovació (AR+I) is conducting its annual field monitoring campaign for the Llacs Sentinella and PyriSentinel projects from late August through early October, focusing on high-altitude lakes to enhance knowledge of their ecosystems and support conservation amid global change pressures.

Work in August and September covered three of the six monitored Andorran lakes—Estanyó, Tristaina and Goter—while sampling at the remaining sites, Forcats in La Massana, and Negre and Forcats in Escaldes-Engordany, is scheduled for September and October. Teams have carried out environmental monitoring, water sampling, bathymetric mapping and advanced genomic analysis to evaluate current ecological conditions and detect long-term changes in these mountain aquatic systems.

These high-altitude lakes, positioned at watershed heads, act as key sentinels for climate shifts due to their sensitivity to environmental alterations. The data gathered will establish reference benchmarks for Andorra and the broader Pyrenees, aiding research into climate effects on mountain ecosystems.

Benjamin Komac, coordinator of AR+I's biological sciences group, noted that the approach integrates environmental monitoring, water sampling, bathymetric mapping and genomic techniques to examine both present ecological function and temporal evolution. Manel Niell, another researcher in the group, emphasised the value of tracking microorganisms in these lakes, stating that such records help identify climate impacts, enabling efforts to minimise damage or raise alerts.

Launched in 2017, Llacs Sentinella tracks physical, chemical and ecological parameters across the lakes to pinpoint threats and inform targeted management strategies for these fragile habitats. The POCTEFA-funded PyriSentinel project, active from 2024 to 2029, targets "invisible biodiversity" through DNA sequencing, assessing microbial diversity and its roles in nutrient cycling, water quality and food webs as early signals of environmental change.