From Lakes in Poland to Global Water Security: A 25-Year Perspective from the Polish Limnological Society

Abstract

The designation of 2026 as the World Economic Forum’s Year of Water underscores the growing recognition of freshwater systems as critical to climate resilience, biodiversity conservation, and socio-economic stability. Coinciding with this global initiative, the Polish Limnological Society (PLS) marks its 25th anniversary, offering an opportunity to reflect on the evolving role of limnology in addressing contemporary environmental challenges. Founded in 2001, PLS has advanced integrative research on inland waters, fostered international scientific cooperation, supported scholarly publishing, and promoted societal engagement with freshwater issues. This Perspective highlights society’s contributions to understanding the natural and anthropogenic transformations of lakes and reservoirs, its commitment to open science and education, and its engagement in climate advocacy to address global water security. We argue that the experience of PLS illustrates how sustained, community-driven limnological science can inform policy, management, and public discourse, reinforcing the imperative to safeguard inland waters in an era of accelerating global change.

The designation of 2026 as the World Economic Forum’s Year of Water underscores the growing recognition of freshwater systems as critical to climate resilience, biodiversity conservation, and socio-economic stability [1]. Freshwater ecosystems occupy less than 1% of the Earth’s surface, yet they support a disproportionate share of global biodiversity and provide essential ecosystem services, including drinking water supply, food production, climate regulation, nutrient cycling, and cultural value. At the same time, surface waters are among the most vulnerable components of the Earth system, responding rapidly and often nonlinearly to climatic forcing and human pressure. Coinciding with this global initiative, the Polish Limnological Society (PLS) marks its 25th anniversary, offering an opportunity to reflect on the evolving role of limnology in addressing contemporary environmental challenges.

The global water crisis is increasingly recognized as a complex phenomenon, driven by climate change, altered hydrological regimes, land-use change, pollution, and the overexploitation of water resources [2,3,4,5]. Rising air temperatures intensify lake stratification, reduce oxygen availability in deep waters, and promote harmful algal blooms [6,7,8], while changes in precipitation patterns alter runoff, nutrient loading, and water residence times [9,10,11]. These processes directly affect ecosystem functioning, water quality, and the reliability of ecosystem services provided by lakes and reservoirs. In this context, limnology has emerged not only as the study of the structural and functional interrelationships of organisms in inland waters, as frequently portrayed in the past [11], but also as a key integrative science, bridging climate research, ecology, hydrology, and water management [12].

The PLS was established during the Fifth National Limnological Conference in Poland, on the initiative of Prof. Włodzimierz Marszelewski (Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun, Torun, Poland), who later became the PLS President in 2012 (

Table 1. The authorities of the Polish Limnological Society since the beginning of the society’s establishment.

Period	President	Vice President	Secretary	Editor-in-Chief of Limnological Review	Board Members	Audit Committee
2001– 2007	Adam Choiński	Władysław Lange	Włodzimierz Marszelewski	Włodzimierz Marszelewski	Jerzy Jańczak Ryszard Wiśniewski	Elżbieta Achrem Konstanty Lossow Marek Turczyński
2008– 2012	Elżbieta Bajkiewicz- Grabowska	Helena Gawrońska	Włodzimierz Marszelewski	Dariusz Borowiak	Marek Turczyński Grzegorz Kowalewski	Dariusz Borowiak Rajmund Skowron Wojciech Sobolewski
2013– 2016	Włodzimierz Marszelewski	Mariusz Rzętała	Jacek Kubiak	Dariusz Borowiak	Elżbieta Bajkiewicz-Grabowska Grzegorz Kowalewski Rajmund Skowron Marek Turczyński	Jarosław Dawidek Michał Łopata Sylwia Machula
2017– 2020	Włodzimierz Marszelewski	Mariusz Rzętała	Piotr Rzymski	Dariusz Borowiak	Joanna Fac-Beneda Piotr Klimaszyk Grzegorz Kowalewski Marek Turczyński	Jarosław Dawidek Michał Łopata Sylwia Machula
2021– 2024	Piotr Klimaszyk	Renata Augustyniak	Piotr Rzymski	Dariusz Borowiak/ Piotr Rzymski	Kamil Nowiński Agnieszka Tórz Marek Turczyński Wojciech Tylmann	Renata Dondajewska-Pielka Michał Łopata Sylwia Machula
2025– 2028	Piotr Klimaszyk	Renata Augustyniak	Piotr Rzymski	Piotr Rzymski	Marika Kornaś-Dynia Kamil Nowiński, Wojciech Tylmann, Agnieszka Tórz Marek Turczyński	Sylwia Machula Renata Dondajewska-Pielka Michał Łopata

). From the outset, PLS was conceived as a non-profit scientific and educational organization, independent of commercial activity and sustained through membership fees, donations, and project-based support. Its core mission has remained consistent for a quarter of a century: to support scientific, technical, engineering, monitoring, and educational activities across all domains of limnology, with particular emphasis on lakes and anthropogenic water bodies. This continuity has been possible solely through the sustained, largely voluntary engagement of its members, whose collective effort constitutes the society’s most valuable resource.

The society promotes limnology as a key discipline within Earth and environmental sciences, integrating physical, chemical, biological, and geological perspectives [12]. From its inception, the society has addressed questions central to understanding how lakes and reservoirs respond to both natural variability and accelerating anthropogenic stress, including eutrophication, thermal alteration, hydromorphological change, and contaminant accumulation. These issues are now recognized as global-scale challenges, with inland waters acting both as sentinels of climate change and as active components of biogeochemical cycles, particularly carbon and nutrient fluxes [13,14,15,16]. Research represented within PLS addresses, among others, the physical and chemical transformations of inland waters, biological responses to environmental change, lake evolution and morphometric dynamics, the role of lakes in catchment-scale water cycling, and interactions between surface waters and groundwater. These themes reflect central questions of contemporary limnology, which are widely discussed in the literature on freshwater ecosystem functioning, ecohydrology, and global change [17,18,19]. Through coordinated research activity, peer exchange, and mentoring of early-career scientists, PLS has contributed to maintaining high scientific standards and intellectual continuity within the Polish limnological community.

Over the past 25 years, PLS has grown into a vibrant scientific community of more than 100 active members, cooperating closely with limnological societies across Europe and beyond. A distinguishing feature of the Polish Limnological Society is the long-standing integration of expertise spanning hydrology, geography, hydrobiology, environmental chemistry, ecotoxicology, and public health. This interdisciplinary composition enables addressing freshwater systems from an integrated perspective, linking physical, chemical, biological, and human health dimensions. Such a holistic approach is essential for tackling complex environmental challenges, supporting evidence-based water management, and advancing sustainability goals related to clean water, ecosystem resilience, and biodiversity protection. Moreover, it aligns with the One Health framework, recognizing the interconnected health of aquatic ecosystems, wildlife, and human populations in a rapidly changing world [20].

The society regularly organizes various meetings (Figure 1), including national conferences under the banner of Natural and Anthropogenic Transformations of Lakes and Water Reservoirs, which provide a forum for integrating observational studies, experimental research, and applied approaches to water management. Equally important are the international conferences initiated and co-organized by PLS, notably the Lakes & Reservoirs: Hot Topics in Limnology series, which has attracted participants from across Europe, Asia, and the Americas. These meetings, three so far (organized in 2016, 2019, and 2024), fostered scientific exchange on issues such as eutrophication, climate-driven thermal alterations, harmful algal blooms, sediment–water interactions, and the socio-ecological consequences of freshwater degradation, i.e., topics that dominate current limnological and environmental discourse. Through integration of diverse disciplinary perspectives and chemical, biological, and geographic experiences, these conferences have strengthened international networks and reinforced the role of PLS and its members as active partners in global limnological research. The successful organization of these meetings—sometimes undertaken with limited institutional support—reflects the commitment, organizational skills, and collegial spirit of members who contribute their time and expertise to sustaining scientific dialogue.

PLS has also played an active role in organizing international scientific expeditions, including research campaigns to Lake Baikal and the Aral Sea basin. Studies conducted during these expeditions addressed not only physicochemical and biological properties of water bodies, but also the broader environmental and health impacts of large-scale ecosystem degradation, particularly in the context of the North Aral Sea [21,22,23]. Collaboration with partners in Kazakhstan and other countries exemplifies PLS’s commitment to transboundary science and to understanding surface waters as coupled human–natural systems. Such initiatives would not have been possible without the personal engagement of Society members willing to extend their research beyond conventional academic frameworks.

A cornerstone of PLS’s contribution to the limnological community has been its long-standing engagement in scientific publishing. The society established and, for many years, published Limnological Review (ISSN 2300-7575), a journal founded in 2001 at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun, with Prof. Włodzimierz Marszelewski becoming its first Editor-in-Chief [24]. The journal served as a platform for disseminating field-based, experimental, and theoretical research on inland water ecosystems, covering hydrology, paleolimnology, aquatic biology, hydrochemistry, sedimentology, ecohydrology, and related disciplines. Its development relied and continues to rely heavily on the dedication of editors, reviewers, and authors working in the spirit of scholarly service.

Maintaining an independent scientific journal became increasingly challenging amid limited external funding and structural changes in academic publishing, compounded by the passing of the long-term Editor-in-Chief, Prof. Dariusz Borowiak (University of Gdańsk, Poland), whose dedication to limnology profoundly shaped the journal. The transition of Limnological Review to an open-access publishing model under MDPI ensures continuity of its mission and broader accessibility of limnological knowledge—an essential step in an era when open science is increasingly recognized as a prerequisite for effective environmental decision-making. The PLS remains a partner of Limnological Review, with selected Society members serving as editors, and Prof. Piotr Rzymski (Poznan University of Medical Sciences, Poland), Secretary of the PLS, serving as Editor-in-Chief. In 2025, the journal published 55 peer-reviewed Scopus-indexed papers (among which 85% were original research studies), constituting a 53% increase from 36 papers published in 2024 and 358% increase from 12 papers in 2023. As shown in Figure 2, the portfolio of articles published in 2025 was dominated by Europe and South America (with Brazilian researchers accounting for approximately two-thirds of the output). In addition to Limnological Review, PLS maintains close ties with other international journals, including Water (ISSN 2073-4441), further strengthening its presence in global scientific communication networks.

Beyond academia, PLS actively fosters societal understanding of limnology. Educational initiatives include lecture series for school students organized with the support of the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education, open online seminars, limnological exhibitions, and, most recently, the Bliżej Jezior (Closer to Lakes) initiative pursued in collaboration with the Institute of Meteorology and Water Management National Research Institute in Poland. It brings together limnologists and water specialists to discuss current environmental challenges, the ecological and socio-economic importance of lakes, and strategies for their conservation. By making recorded lectures freely available via social media and online platforms, including the Society’s YouTube channel, PLS contributes to science communication and environmental awareness. In 2026, the PLS also signed an agreement with the Poznan University of Medical Sciences in Poland to promote public understanding of science in the areas of water quality and public health. These outreach activities are especially important in the current social media–dominated information landscape, where misinformation is widespread and can undermine public trust in science [25,26].

The society’s engagement also extends to global environmental advocacy. PLS is among the signatories of the World Climate Statement, which addresses the impacts of anthropogenic climate change on marine and freshwater ecosystems [27]. This statement, also translated into Polish [26], underscores the dramatic scale of surface water degradation, highlights alarming trends, such as the sharp decline in freshwater biodiversity since the 1970s, and calls for immediate action to mitigate further losses [28]. These warnings echo a growing body of scientific evidence documenting the vulnerability of freshwater ecosystems to warming, altered hydrological regimes, and cumulative human pressures.

Today, under the leadership of its current President, Prof. Piotr Klimaszyk (Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland), the PLS stands at the intersection of tradition and urgency. Its 25-year history reflects the evolution of limnology itself: from discipline-focused lake studies to an integrative science essential for understanding climate feedbacks, biodiversity loss, environmental health, and sustainable development. The society exists and thrives because of the collective engagement, shared responsibility, and collegial ethos of its members, whose continued support remains indispensable.

As the Year of Water reminds us, freshwater systems are among the most threatened components of the Earth system. Yet, they are also among the most powerful levers for resilience and adaptation. In this context, the role of limnological science is no longer confined to description and diagnosis; it must actively inform policy, management, and societal choices. Looking toward the remainder of the 21st century, lake ecosystems in Poland are projected to experience substantial climate-driven changes, including increased water temperatures, stronger and longer thermal stratification, reduced oxygen availability in deep layers, altered ice phenology, and more frequent harmful algal blooms [29,30]. Within this context, the PLS can play, as in the past, a role by integrating scientific findings into national water management and adaptation strategies [5,31,32]. By focusing on Polish lakes as representative systems, PLS not only strengthens our understanding of regional freshwater responses but also generates insights transferable to broader European assessments of freshwater ecosystem vulnerability and resilience.

The first 25 years of PLS demonstrate how a committed scientific community can contribute to this task—through rigorous research, international cooperation, open communication, and public engagement. The next quarter-century will demand even greater integration of science and action. If there is a lesson to be drawn from society’s history, it is this: safeguarding lakes and inland waters is not only a scientific challenge but also a civilizational imperative.