“Climate-Induced Changes in Fish Populations: A Pilot Study for Integrated Climate Monitoring Using the Pielach River as a Case Study (KliMoFisch)”

The KliMoFisch project is a pilot study designed to develop and test an integrated climate-monitoring concept for fish populations in Austrian running waters. The study addresses the growing evidence that climate change is already affecting native fish fauna, particularly cold-adapted species such as salmonids, whose suitable habitat is expected to shrink as water temperatures rise.12 As a pilot river, the Pielach was selected because it represents several fish zones, has a comparatively good ecological status, and is supported by an extensive historical dataset from previous fish surveys. These features make it well suited for testing a targeted monitoring approach and for evaluating how climate-related changes can be detected in river fish communities.1 The main objective of the project is to assess the methodological feasibility of such a monitoring framework, evaluate the quality and sensitivity of the collected data, and derive recommendations for a possible application in additional rivers. An important part of the study is also the analysis of cost efficiency: the methods used will be systematically compared with respect to data quality, sensitivity, and costs in order to optimize the protocol and estimate the resources required for broader implementation.