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Contenuto archiviato il 2022-12-23

European aquatic habitat modelling

Obiettivo

A. Background

The ecologically sensitive management of river corridors and freshwater resources is one of the key issues being addressed by hydrological and ecological scientists throughout the world. In Europe in particular, past river and water resource management practices have resulted in widespread impacts on the ecology of streams and rivers. Increasing concern over the human impacts on the flora and fauna of European rivers has produced a strong demand for operational tools and assessment frameworks to assess these issues and to develop mitigation procedures. Many recent publications have shown the urgent need for ecologically sound river management practices to maintain the natural environment within future resource development projects.

River channelization and the creation of locks for flood defence, land drainage and navigation purposes, as well as the establishment of weirs and reservoirs for power production or irrigation has dramatically altered the habitats of many river courses. Similarly, urbanisation and other changes of land use in river catchments have restricted floodplain habitats. At the same time water resource developments have resulted in artificially influenced flow regimes, again resulting in changes to river habitats.

The artificial morphological and hydrological changes outlined above have affected many riverine ecosystems in a strongly negative way. The most obvious symptom of this is the reduction and local extinction of fish species. However, these impacts may equally apply to less noticeable species such as the benthic macroinvertebrates and aquatic micro- and macrophytes.

The need to protect aquatic populations, especially with respect to water resource issues, has recently led to the development of habitat models that examine the instream flow requirements of aquatic species and their life stages. The ability of these habitat models to predict instream habitats and aquatic populations adequately is the focus of ongoing debate and research. Similarly, the applicability of such models to the ecologically and climatologically diverse regions within Europe, and to the full range of habitat management issues that may exist, has not yet been demonstrated. There is a strong need for validation at a small scale and an integration of results on catchment scale approaches and management strategies.

This COST Action will facilitate the development and application of new models and methods between the participants through their national funded research and the networking possibilities provided in this COST Action. This COST Action will also facilitate the information dissemination to end users like environmental agencies, national institutions, regulatory bodies and the water and hydropower industry. While the end-users will be active from the start-up of the Action, they will be able to participate in the priorities of research need in an integrated way.

Aquatic habitat modelling was first developed in the USA, and has been applied all over the western world. Many successful applications have been done in single species rivers, especially in temperate climates in the North America, Europe and New Zealand. However, several unsuccessful applications have demonstrated the limitations and lack of knowledge behind the processes making aquatic species choose their habitat. It is very important for this Action to use unsuccessful application as a base for how and where to improve methods and models. The Action must always consider limiting conditions and requirements for all methods and models in use.

The research on physical aquatic habitat assessment methods in Europe is however somewhat fragmented. There is overlap and redundancy in some fields and significant gaps to be filled in others. The integrated development and management of water resources within Europe requires harmonised and comparable monitoring, physical quality assessment protocols, modelling techniques and analysis tools and systems, all oriented from a reach towards a catchment scale. To accomplish this task it is necessary to combine the efforts of research teams in different countries through collaboration. This will provide a foundation for a more holistic consideration of ecological interactions in riverine systems and assist researchers and resource management agencies in the quest to re-establish and maintain the ecological integrity of freshwater systems.

B. Objectives and benefits

The main objective of the proposed Action is to define and develop integrated methods and models of assessing the interactions between aquatic flora and fauna and riverine habitats on reach scale and provide transferability to a catchment scale.

National funded research and collaboration through this Action will define and lead to the development of integrated methods among scientists as well as implementation of methods among end-users and scientists.

The first objective of this Action is to define the state-of-the-art in methods and modelling of riverine habitats and to define the research needs. On the basis of the state-of-the-art, the Action will provide an integrated framework for the quantitative assessment of the effect of human influences on aquatic ecosystems. The Action will also develop improved operational hydro-ecological assessment tools, utilising innovative scientific procedures, under a broad multi-disciplinary approach.

Through continuous participation of some end-users and information dissemination among other end-users, the Action will provide decision-makers and operators with the available methods and tools to assess interactions between aquatic flora and fauna and riverine habitats. The Action will together with national funded research define where and how to develop new and improved methods and models, and the results will be disseminated among international and national environmental agencies, water authorities, the water supply industry, the hydro-electric energy production sector, and water engineering companies. The best state-of-the-art techniques can be defined and further developed only by integrating knowledge and research from several countries.

The Action will concentrate on typical European rivers to the beginning of tidal influence. However, the Action will first focus on typical trout streams and brown trout (Salmo trutta). Secondly, the Action will also focus on other types of confined streams and other species. While the amount of research and successful modelling is high within trout and typical trout rivers, this will minimise the risk of failure in the starting phase. Up to now, modelling efforts have been focused on a local scale. In several national funded projects approaches for upscaling from local results to a catchment scale will be developed. A main task in the Action is to co-ordinate these approaches from national funded projects. The Action outcome will thus assist the management of river catchments and provide tools for mitigation of ecologically degraded river systems.

C. Scientific programme

In order to ensure the successful conclusion of the study, the research programme breaks down the overall objective into three important Action tasks:

A. Defining research needs in methods and models of assessing the interactions between aquatic flora and fauna and riverine habitats. The state-of-the-art will be the basic framework for scientists and end-users to apply in their national research or operational functions. A World Wide Web site will be made available to serve this framework. This task requires Action participants to collate information on a broad scale, including participation from non-COST countries where important research and application have taken place (i.e. USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand). The first workshops and publications in the Action will focus on task A.
B. Improve and develop new methods and models of assessing the interactions between aquatic flora and fauna and riverine habitats. The national research programs will focus on improvement and developments of methods and models on the basis of needed development defined in the Action with special emphasis on the implementation of habitat modelling methodologies in catchment management.
C. Provide end-users with the best available methods, models and tools for assessing the interactions between aquatic flora and fauna and riverine habitats on reach and floodplain level. Through national funded research and co-ordination by the Action, end-users will participate and receive an updated framework for their operational and research needs.

Detailed knowledge of hydrology, hydraulics, geomorphology, river and fish ecology is needed in order to achieve the objectives of the Action. To ensure the integration of different scientific disciplines, all Action tasks will contain three focused Action areas:

Action Area I: Raw Data

All kind of assessment studies requires some kind of raw data, very often several different types of data (i.e. data on hydrology, ecosystem species and hydro operations). The collection of different types of data should be considered in its entirety, not as separate tasks belonging to separate disciplines.

The data quality and the spatial resolution in raw data are very often crucial to the quality of the assessment study. The raw data collection should always be considered as a part of the whole modelling and application. The need for integration with the other Action Areas is clear.

Technical issues like methods and instruments for raw data collection, control and storage is one of the main tasks in the Raw Data Action Area. The need for documentation of methods and the first steps towards general standardised methods of data collection must be other tasks within this Action Area.

To achieve the first objective of setting the research needs in assessment methods for aquatic habitats, raw data requirements and collection procedures will be described. New innovative techniques in data collection will be essential to improve and develop new methods and models of assessing riverine ecosystems for the Action Task B, Developing methods and models. The best practice and a set of guidelines in data collection and use will be a part of the framework provided to the end-users in Action Task C, Making methods and models available.

Action Area II: Modelling

A model is defined from the simplest linear or direct correlation between any raw data and output result, to advanced algorithms using sets of raw data and numerical calculations to produce wanted output.

Development of improved and new models is a main task when the needs for new development is settled after the Action Task One of defining the research needs.

Although many modelling techniques have been applied for aquatic ecosystem assessments, many of them lack validation. There is of course also a strong need for making validation procedures for any new or improved modelling techniques being developed in this Action Area.

The technical software sides of modelling and how best to construct the models are also important tasks in the Modelling Action Area.

To achieve the first objective of setting the research needs in assessment methods for aquatic habitats, the description and documentation of existing models will be made. The use of new algorithms (as in bioenergetics or spatial metrics), validation and documentation of new and combined modelling techniques will be essential for reaching the objectives of Action Task B, Developing methods and models. Dissemination and practical examples of model use are the main means of achieving the objectives in Action Task C, Making methods and models available.

Action Area III: Application

All methods and models have both theoretical and practical limitations, which reduces the applicability. Combined applications of several methods and models are crucial as several disciplines and many water use conflicts are involved in most of the assessment studies for European waters. To achieve a complete assessment and added value, it is very important to integrate local models to a catchment scale.

To achieve the first objective of setting the research needs in assessment methods for aquatic habitats, both successful and unsuccessful application must be described. During the improvement and development of methods and models in Action Task B, it is very important to describe how methods and models can be applied and where they are not applicable. The interactions with end-users and all scientists for the best possible dissemination of applicable methods and models are the main focus for the Action Task C, Making methods and models available.

D. Organisation and timetable

The organisation and timetable of the Action is strongly linked with the scientific program while the organisation will follow Action Areas and the timetable Action Tasks. The Management Committee (MC) will establish one working group for each Action Area. The first objective (Action Task I) of defining the research needs will be carried out in Year 1, leading to the first general workshop after one year. The Action Task II, Developing methods and models, will run for Year 2 and 3 with working group workshops and both interim and final general seminars. The Action Task III, Application of methods and models, will take place in Year 4 when dissemination is the main focus. However, notice that dissemination of the framework will start already after Year 1. Half a year after Year 4, a final evaluation meeting with mainly end-user participation will be organised.

Within each Action Area, there might be organised several workshops. The framework will be made shortly after Task A is fulfilled, and updated at least once a year in the following.

Each Action Area will have one leader appointed by the MC. Each of the Action Tasks will also have a leader (chairman) who will work in close relationship with the Secretariat. This gives a matrix organisation, and it is very important to clear each leader's responsibility. The Action Area leaders will be in charge of the scientific work. The Task leaders will be in charge of organising the general workshops and seminars who ends each Task. The Task leader will also be responsible for making interactions between the Action Areas and the involvement of end-users. The MC might also delegate the responsibility of the framework and the framework updates to a separate leader. The MC will have to decide this themselves.

The Action should be carried on for a period of 4 years and be culminated with an international seminar on Modelling of Riverine Habitats where the research results and follow-up options will be presented to the international community of scientists and regulators.

E. Economic dimension

On the basis of national estimates provided by representatives from Austria, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Norway and Switzerland, the overall cost of the activities under the Action is estimated to 2.5 millions Euro per year at 1999 prizes. The estimate includes both co-ordination costs to be covered by the COST budget of the European Commission and national funded. This estimate is valid under the assumption that all countries mentioned above but no other countries will participate in the Action. Any departure from this will change the total cost accordingly.

F. Dissemination

A framework of possible methods and models will be made available to the public. The framework will consist of a set of documented methods and models, experiences, test data sets, advice and some guidelines as well as contact persons, addresses and Internet links. The best and appropriate way to provide the framework is through Internet, but a report will also be made.

Workshops and seminars within the proposed Action will spread the material developed and assembled by the proposed Action within the scientific community and interested end-users.

Additionally, based on their position in national or provincial authorities or agencies, the end-users involved in the project will function as multiplicators and information distributors. Parallel to their contributing task to the model developers, they will be responsible for information distribution within national and provincial water authorities. Special end-user training seminars will be organised following the COST Action by the participants on a national basis. Thus it is ensured that the synergetic results of the proposed COST Action will be actively spread and applicable on a European scale, not only by scientists but also by other end-users.

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