Citizen science project set to tap into groundwater biodiversity

Citizen science is increasing across all disciplines, from environmental monitoring to public health. It is also known as a fundamental element of open science. However, it still represents only a very small fraction of total scientific research and the full potential has yet to be exploited.

Groundwater is an important resource across Romania, but the knowledge on groundwater as habitat for organisms and its function as a reservoir of biodiversity is less known. Cluj-BioGround is a research project on aquifers from Cluj County aiming to raise the awareness about groundwater biodiversity, with the involvement of citizens.

What’s in the groundwater?

Collecting groundwater samples from hand-dug wells and groundwater boreholes, we aim to detect the presence of stygofauna (species strictly adapted to groundwater) and to assess the subterranean biodiversity from aquifers of Cluj County. Previous hand-dug wells and boreholes sampling in the alluvial aquifers of the Somesul Mic River allow the identification of a quite large diversity of small blind and colorless crustaceans such are ostracods, copepods, amphipods and syncarids. These tiny little creatures are important because they are at the top of the subterranean aquatic food web and they provide several ecosystem services, the most important being their indication for good groundwater quality.