The initial FADA project
After an initial phase, supported by DIVERSITAS and the Centre National pour la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS France), aimed at producing a rough estimate of the number of freshwater species (Lévêque, C., E. V. Balian & K. Martens, 2005), the Belgian Science Policy Office (Belspo), the Belgian Biodiversity Platform, and the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences provided crucial support to officially launch the "Freshwater Animal Diversity Assessment" in 2005. 

The objective was do a complete review of animal diversity in freshwaters. About 60 leading taxonomists were involved in assembling a team of close to 150 experts who globally collected information on species diversity for each animal group. The project ended up with listing more than 125,000 species, their correct taxonomic names and their zoogeographical distribution. The results were published in 59 chapters of a special issue of the international journal Hydrobiologia and in the initial FADA database. 

This first assessment highlighted gaps in the basic knowledge of freshwater animal biodiversity richness at continental and global scales. Some groups were being less studied and data on their diversity and distribution was more scarce than for others. Furthermore, the freshwater fauna of certain zoogeographic regions was far less studied than others.

FADA follow-up activities

• From 2010 to 2014, FADA received new attention in the framework of the FP7 BioFresh project. BioFresh adopted FADA as the taxonomic backbone for its Freshwater Biodiversity Data Portal which is currently rebuilt as FIPbio.

• Starting in 2014, the two years project AquaRES – funded by beslpo – represented a collaboration with the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) which hosts the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS). In the framework of this project, data In FADA were improved and extended by updating the import procedures and ensuring that relevant data is synchronised with other aquatic species registers.

• In May 2015, 4 leading European research institutes launched the Freshwater Information Platform which integrates FADA through the FIPbio data portal.