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).

The deliverable is structured in five parts. Part 1 provides an overall framework for hydromorphological assessment. Part 2 includes thematic annexes on protocols for monitoring indicators and models. Part 3 is a detailed guidebook for the application of the Morphological Quality Index (MQI). Part 4 (this volume) describes the Geomorphic Units survey and classification System. Part 5 includes a series of applications to some case studies of some of the tools and methods reported in the previous parts.

Summary of Deliverable 6.2 Part 4

This part provides a detailed description of the Geomorphic Units survey and classification System (GUS). This method is used to identify, characterise and analyse the assemblage of geomorphic units within a given reach. The system is suitable for integrating the MQI and is also aimed at allowing the establishment of links between hydromorphological conditions at reach scale, characteristic geomorphic units, and related biological conditions.

The document is organised in two parts. Part A provides the general background and describes characteristics, analysis, testing, and typical applications of the method. Part B is an Illustrated Guidebook to the identification and classification of geomorphic units. A series of Forms for the application of the GUS are reported in Appendix 1. The list of gemorphic units included in the GUS is reported in Appendix 2. A brief glossary of significant terms is reported in Appendix 3.