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The use of ecological criteria for the assessment of aquatic ecosystem status is routine for surface waters. So far no ecological parameters are considered for the assessment and monitoring of groundwater quality. It has been well known for decades that aquifers are ecosystems harbouring a vast diversity of invertebrates and microorganisms. The growing knowledge on groundwater microbial and faunal communities as well as the molecular and statistical tools available form a solid ground for the development of first ecologically sound assessment schemes. The sensitivity of groundwater communities towards impacts from land use and surface waters is exemplarily demonstrated by a data set of two geologically similar but hydrologically partially separated aquifer systems. Subgroups of the fauna in groundwater (stygobites vs.stygophiles and stygoxenes) successfully indicated elevated nitrate impacts linked to land use activities. Within the microbial communities, impacts from land use are mirrored by high bacterial biodiversity values atypical for pristine groundwater of comparable systems. The data show that there is legitimate hope for the application of ecological criteria for groundwater quality assessment in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Groundwater ecology merged during the second part of the 20thcentury with modern ecological practice after having adopted the ‘ecosystem concept’. The latter was first applied to karstic systems and separately for alluvial nonconsolidated aquifers along surface running waters. Today groundwater ecosystems are studied within a multi and transdisciplinary framework at various spatial and temporal scales by experts dealing with microbiology, the ecology and systematics of meio and macrofauna, geochemistry, hydrogeology and mathematical modelling. A further paradigmatic change occured with the recognition that subterranean assemblages of organisms are formed by both hypogean and epigean taxa. The biological diversity in subterranean ecosystems can be much higher than earlier thought and may even exceed surface diversity in some taxa. This largely unrecognized biodiversity in many cases deserves environmental protection. A third phase in the development of groundwater ecology has occured over the last 15 years with the incorporation of socioeconomic research topics within groundwater ecology Gibert et al., 1994a and in this sense today we have the “New Groundwater Ecology”.We should cling to our traditions and do what we can to keep the understanding of the world in which we live as a resource for all humankindColin S. Reynolds, 2001: Limnology in the New Century: 21 Topics for Research. – Limnology 1, p. 17 © 2008 WILEYVCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]