Deliverables

This section gives the complete list of all published deliverables and links to download the full documents. Deliverables are listed in reversed chronological order, i.e. new ones appear on top.

If you prefer to have an overview of the deliverables per Work Package, you can refer to the Results menu.


Structure and dependencies of the Work Packages in the REFORM project
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REFORM Policy Brief No.3 - A fresh look on effective river restoration: Key conclusions from the REFORM project

This is the third and final in a series of three Policy Briefs published by the REFORM project. This Policy Brief presents key conclusions and recommendations of the REFORM project, which are relevant for policy-makers involved in river basin management planning.

The key conclusions and recommendations address the following themes:
- REFORM hydromorphology framework
- REFORM hydromorphological assessment methods
- Remote sensing for river hydromorphological investigation
- Role of vegetation and floodplains
- Groundwater-river interactions

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  • Final

Guidance and decision support for cost-effective river and floodplain restoration and its benefits

The present report presents guidance and decision support for cost-effective river and floodplain restoration and its benefits. It serves as a portal to the web-based information system or wiki developed within REFORM and summarizes the contents, structure and functionality of this wiki. The wiki guides the planning process and design of cost-effective and hydromorphologically relevant restoration and its benefits. 

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REFORM newsletters & leaflet

This document gives an overview of the REFORM newsletters and leaflets. All newsletters and leaflets are available online at the public website of REFORM (http://www.reformrivers.eu). For each item in the newsletter the teaser is given as well as the hyperlink to the full article.

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Fact sheets for restoration projects

 This deliverable D4.5 summarizes information and experiences for thirteen river types and lists meta-data analysis results based on 844 publications. The report starts with a summary of a literature meta-data analysis, using the REFORM river reach typology. The main component of the report deals with fact sheets and per river type provides a synthesis of restoration experiences describing best and efficient restoration practices, including promising restoration techniques and variables suited for monitoring restoration.

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Large river regulation and rehabilitation in Europe – six selected case studies

Large rivers have been selected as one of the satellite topics both within WP3 and WP4, because of their particular features which could not be analysed in the case study catchments framework. Large rivers are considered rivers with a catchment larger than 10,000 km2 and > 100 m3/s. This encompasses rivers such as the Danube, Rhine, Rhône, Ebro, Vistula but also major tributaries such as the Sava, Narew, and Main rivers. Most fulfil major socio-economic functions, which will remain strongly modified and thus direct the options for rehabilitation. Because of their multifunctional use, large rivers can often only be partially rehabilitated or mitigated to achieve Good Ecological Potential according to the Water Framework Directive. This report addresses both hydrological modifications and restoration (rehabilitation, mitigation) following a DPSIR approach for six case studies that are spread across Europe

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Policy discussion paper "Linking e-Flows to sediment dynamics"

Fluvial communities and their ecological integrity are the result of their evolutionary adaptation to river habitats. Flowing water is the main driver for development and maintenance of these habitats, which is why environmental flows (e-Flows) are needed where societal demands are depleting water resources. Fluvial habitats are not only the result of water flow, however, but are shaped by the combined interaction of water, sediments woody/organic material, and riparian vegetation. Water abstraction, flow regulation by dams, gravel pits or siltation by fine sediments eroded from hillslopes are pressures that can disturb interactions among water, sediments, and other constituents that create the habitats needed by fluvial communities. 

Present e-Flow design criteria are based only on water flow requirements. Here we argue that sediment dynamics need to be considered when specifying instream flows, thereby expanding the environmental objectives and definition of e-Flows to include sediments (extended e-Flows).

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Risks and Uncertainty in River Rehabilitation

Analyses of costs and benefits require the prediction of the effects of restoration measures and the quantification of societal values. Both of these estimates are uncertain. In this report, some of the key issues related to the assessment, description and quantification of uncertainty are discussed and guidelines are provided for considering uncertainty. 

This report provides a brief overview on the representation and quantification of uncertainty in scientific prediction followed by examples of typical risks associated with river restoration that could lead to unintended, adverse effects and in more detail, how uncertainty can be considered in CEA/CBA and in MCDA.

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Effects of climate and land use changes on river ecosystems and restoration practices

Rivers are highly complex ecosystems with interrelated processes between physical, chemical and biological components. River restoration efforts are put in place to overcome pressures from the development sector to improve river process and function, nevertheless, river restoration tends to encounter obstacles as a result of these societal demands. To stop restoration projects falling short of their objectives, there is a need to demonstrate and predict the effects of human activities on these components spatially and temporally.

The overall aim of this document is to provide guidance and tools for river managers to analyse the potential effects of degradation, restoration, climate and land use change to optimise benefits between cross-sectoral river services and ecological requirements whilst considering climate change effects. Failure to plan across the full array of ecological and socioeconomic co-benefits can have undesirable and unanticipated consequences.

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Methods, models, tools to assess the hydromorphology of rivers - Part 5 Applications

Work Package 6 of REFORM focuses on monitoring protocols, survey methods, assessment procedures, guidelines and other tools for characterising the consequences of physical degradation and restoration, and for planning and designing successful river restoration and mitigation measures and programmes. Deliverable 6.2 of Work Package 6 is the final report on methods, models and tools to assess the hydromorphology of rivers. This report summarises the outputs of Tasks 6.1 (Selection of indicators for cost-effective monitoring and development of monitoring protocols to assess river degradation and restoration), 6.2 (Improve existing methods to survey and assess the hydromorphology of river ecosystems), and 6.3 (Identification and selection of existing hydromorphological and ecological models and tools suitable to plan and evaluate river restoration).

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The Geomorphic Units survey and classification System (GUS)

Work Package 6 of REFORM focuses on monitoring protocols, survey methods, assessment procedures, gudelines and other tools for characterising the consequences of physical degradation and restoration, and for planning and designing successful river restoration and mitigation measures and programmes. Deliverable 6.2 of Work Package 6 is the final report on methods, models and tools to assess the hydromorphology of rivers. This report summarises the outputs of Tasks 6.1 (Selection of indicators for cost-effective monitoring and development of monitoring protocols to assess river degradation and restoration), 6.2 (Improve existing methods to survey and assess the hydromorphology of river ecosystems), and 6.3 (Identification and selection of existing hydromorphological and ecological models and tools suitable to plan and evaluate river restoration).

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Guidebook for the evaluation of stream morphological conditions by the Morphological Quality Index (MQI)

 Work Package 6 of REFORM focuses on monitoring protocols, survey methods, assessment procedures, guidelines and other tools for characterising the consequences of physical degradation and restoration, and for planning and designing successful river restoration and mitigation measures and programmes. Deliverable 6.2 of Work Package 6 is the final report on methods, models and tools to assess the hydromorphology of rivers. This report summarises the outputs of Tasks 6.1 (Selection of indicators for cost-effective monitoring and development of monitoring protocols to assess river degradation and restoration), 6.2 (Improve existing methods to survey and assess the hydromorphology of river ecosystems), and 6.3 (Identification and selection of existing hydromorphological and ecological models and tools suitable to plan and evaluate river restoration).

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Methods, models, tools to assess the hydromorphology of rivers - Part 2 Thematic annexes

Work Package 6 of REFORM focuses on monitoring protocols, survey methods, assessment procedures, guidelines and other tools for characterising the consequences of physical degradation and restoration, and for planning and designing successful river restoration and mitigation measures and programmes. Deliverable 6.2 of Work Package 6 is the final report on methods, models and tools to assess the hydromorphology of rivers.

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Methods, models, tools to assess the hydromorphology of rivers - Part 1 Main report

Work Package 6 of REFORM focuses on monitoring protocols, survey methods, assessment procedures, guidelines and other tools for characterising the consequences of physical degradation and restoration, and for planning and designing successful river restoration and mitigation measures and programmes. Deliverable 6.2 of Work Package 6 is the final report on methods, models and tools to assess the hydromorphology of rivers. 

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Policy discussion paper "Bringing groundwater to the surface"

This policy paper aims are to identify specific issues and raise awareness of the issues related to groundwater-river interactions by improving knowledge transfers to policy makers and water managers. Groundwater is a key factor in supporting ecological flows (Eflows), both concerning quantity and quality of surface water required for Good Status of aquatic ecosystems. 

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Proceedings of the International Conference on River and Stream Restoration “Novel Approaches to Assess and Rehabilitate Modified Rivers”

These proceedings of the International Conference 'Novel Approaches to Assess and Rehabilitate Modified Rivers', which took place from 30th June to 2nd July 2015 in Wageningen (the Netherlands), contain the extended summaries of nearly all keynotes and oral presentations as well as several poster presentations. They are preceeded by a description of the scope, objectives and topics of the conference, feedback from the advisory and a visual impression of conference. The contributions are grouped within the six conference topics:

  1. Assessment and rehabilitation of hydromorphological processes in rivers
  2. Discerning the impact of hydromorphological modification from other stressors
  3. Achievements by restoration and mitigation practices
  4. How to improve the (cost-)effectiveness of river rehabilitation?
  5. Benefits of river rehabilitation and synergies with other uses (flood protection, navigation, agriculture, hydropower)
  6. Linking science to practice: tools to assess river status and guide rehabilitation to optimize river basin management

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Guidance to detect impact of HyMo degradation on riparian ecosystems

The aim of this deliverable is to address the impact of hydromorphological degradation on floodplain and riparian ecosystems, with specific focus on vegetation, fish and invertebrate responses and to provide guidance on how to identify those impacts. 

An introductory chapter summarises the research context and reviews the lessons for managers and stakeholders. Based on the results of the analyses, and the river styles typology developed in Work Package 2 of REFORM, a generic process is recommended for assessing the impact on floodplain and riparian ecosystems, incorporating our key findings. It also highlights the usefulness and limitations of existing EU Directives in providing a suitable legislative framework. 

Assessments of instream impacts on riverine ecosystems make use of multi-site datasets, riparian and floodplain ecosystems are not subject to this type of extensive monitoring; hence, the results presented here are based primarily on case studies from across Europe.

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Lecture notes of the summer school ‘Restoring regulated streams linking theory and practice’

This deliverable presents the overview and structure of the REFORM 3-day summer school ‘Restoring regulated streams linking theory and practice’ for early career researchers and young scientists. 

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Cost-effective restoration measures that promote wider ecosystem and societal benefits

The report provides an overview of existing guidelines and manuals related to the assessment of costs and benefits of river restoration. Although there exist many cost-benefit analysis handbooks, there are not many related specifically to river restoration. This report aims to fill this gap, and focuses on the specific characteristics of the estimation of costs and benefits related to river restoration. The report discusses the classification and assessment of costs and benefits of river restoration, and develops a benefits transfer approach that can be used to assess benefits when it is not possible to carry out primary valuation research. Key methodological issues in a CBA of river restoration are identified, discussed and illustrated. The report provides a number of practical recommendations to practitioners.

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Evaluation of candidate biological indicators of hydrological and morphological degradation

Work Package 3 of REFORM focuses on the impacts of hydromorphological changes on river and floodplain ecosystems. The main research objectives of deliverable 3.3 are:

  • To establish empirical relationships between the biota, flow dynamics, substrate complexity/habitat heterogeneity and sediment dynamics.
  • To select and develop candidate indicators for WFD quality elements that quantify impacts of hydrological and morphological degradation in rivers.
  • To develop novel biological indicators capable of diagnosing hydromorphological stressors in a multiple stressor environment.
  • To advise on the design of monitoring programs to detect hydrological and morphological degradation.
  • To address the importance to quantify uncertainty in biology based hydromorphological assessment and discuss the implications of uncertainty for monitoring and assessment.

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Assessing the societal benefits of river restoration using the ecosystem services approach

The success of river restoration is often poorly quantified due to poor design, absence of proper monitoring or incomplete documentation. This study is an attempt to overcome this ex-post using the aggregating nature of the ecosystem services approach. In 8 pairs of restored reaches and their adjacent floodplains of middle-sized European rivers, we quantified as many provisioning, regulating and cultural services as possible that were of final value to humans as annual biogeochemical or –physical fluxes, or densities per year, and summed these to annual economic value normalised per area. 

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Understanding biological responses to degraded hydromorphology and multiple stresses

The aim of this deliverable is to conceptually model and empirically test the response of biota to the effects of both hydromorphological pressures acting in concert with one another or with other types of pressures. Best use is made of existing large national monitoring datasets (Denmark, UK, Finland, France, Germany, Austria & WISER datasets), case studies and modeling to provide evidence of multiple stressors interacting to alter river biota (Biological Quality Elements: BQE).

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Effects of large- and small-scale river restoration on hydromorphology and ecology

 Summary

An increasing number of river sections have been restored in the past few decades but only a small number of these projects have been monitored. The few monitoring studies mainly investigated single organism groups, reported contrasting results, and rarely did investigate the influence of catchment, river or project characteristics. In this study, we compiled a harmonized dataset on the effects of hydromorphological river restoration measures on biota based on a standardized monitoring design to minimize scatter due to methodological differences. A broad range of response variables was recorded to draw conclusions on the effect of restoration on biota in general, including habitat composition in the river and its floodplain, three aquatic and two floodplain-inhabiting organism groups, as well as food web composition and aquatic land interactions as reflected by stable isotopes. Additional data on factors potentially constraining or enhancing the effect of restoration were compiled to identify conditions which favour restoration success. The main focus was dedicated to investigate the effect of restoration extent (as indicated by restored section length and restoration intensity).

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REFORM project leaflet - Czech version

Introducing the REFORM leaflet!
This document (one page, double sided, not folded) is ready to be printed and distributed at any event to provide a brief introduction and overview of the REFORM project as well as invite the reader to learn more on the project website.

Note that the leaflet is now available in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Polish and Swedish.

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Multi-scale framework and indicators of hydromorphological processes and forms IV. Partial case study applications

Part 4 of Deliverable 2.1 "Multi-scale framework and indicators of hydromorphological processes and forms" provides four partial applications of the framework described in Part 1 to case study catchments (River Tweed, UK; River Loire, France; River Tagliamento, Italy; Rivers Lech and Lafnitz, Austria). These case studies are mainly confined to the delineation and characterisation phases of the framework, but they incorporate additional environmental settings to the complete case studies provided in Part 3.

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Multi-scale framework and indicators of hydromorphological processes and forms III. Full case study applications

Part 3 of Deliverable 2.1 "Multi-scale framework and indicators of hydromorphological processes and forms" provides a set of full case study applications of the framework described in Part 1 that are designed to guide users of the framework through the various stages of its application. The five case studies are set within different biogeographical regions of Europe.

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