Aims

One of the aims of Workpackage 4 in REFORM is to analyse the effects of large “iconic” river restoration measures throughout Europe on a large number of environmental, biotic and functional variables. We will compare the effects of these large “iconic” river restoration measures to small restoration measures of similar river types. Therefore, we will rank a large number of environmental, biotic and functional variables according to their effect size responding to river restoration measures. This will lead into guidance on the design of river restoration measures in two major European river types.

Sampling scheme

In general we target two broadly defined river “types” widely distributed in Europe: Mid-sized mountain rivers and mid-sized lowland rivers.

For each river type about five “case studies” will be investigated. Each case study consists of four study sites:

• Pair 1:
  • Large flagship restoration measure
  • Upstream control site
• Pair 2:
  • Small restoration measure
  • Upstream control site

Each study site will be targeted with the same arrange of methods, covering floodplain hydromorphology, river hydromorphology, stable isotopes (N and C), riparian vegetation, macrophytes, benthic invertebrates and fish.

The following links give information on the two restored sites (large flagship restoration measure and small restoration measure) from each case study.