The European Large Lakes Symposium (ELLS) 2006 will focus especially on the ecosystems of European large lakes and their ecological and socioeconomic impacts. Although considerable cooperation in lake-related issues already exists in Europe, as elsewhere, e.g. North America, a special forum focusing on the management of the risks concerning large lakes is certainly needed. This cooperation would provide a basis for elaborating the best strategies for communicating the risks of human activities regarding lake ecosystems to public stakeholders, including policymakers on European and regional scale.
Some of the issues to be discussed are:

- climate change and anthropogenic impacts on large lakes ecosystems
- modelling tools in large lakes research
- the European Water Framework Directive and large lakes
- socioeconomic aspects of water resource and catchment management
- policy support systems for the sustainable management of large lakes affected by global changes