Riparian Zones—From Policy Neglected to Policy Integrated

1. Riparian zones are vital areas of interaction between land and rivers and are often degraded by several pressures such as urbanisation, intensive agriculture and river engineering works. 2. This policy brief provides five key policy messages and recommendations to be considered by policy-makers, scientists, managers, and stakeholders to enhance riparian zone management. 3. Adopting an integrated socioeconomic and environmentally dynamic view will ensure the sustainable management of riparian zones. 4. In light of climate change, it is critically important to conserve and/or restore the ecological integrity of riparian zones. 5. European Union Directives and national-scale legislation and regulations need updating to ensure coordinated implementation of riparian zone-related policies. 6. Stakeholder knowledge exchange, policy co-creation and adaptive management are key to enhancing riparian zone functions

Back to Ecology: Reference Conditions as a Basis for Assessment, Restoration and Sustainable Management of Large Rivers

Under the EU Water Framework Directive, ecological assessment and management are based on type-specific reference conditions. In the EU it may be difficult to find sites in large rivers with at least near-natural conditions, though this is not the case in southeast Europe, where stretches of large rivers still exist with at least near-natural conditions, meaning that there is little or no disturbance from hydromorphological alteration, water quality, land use in the catchment and alien species. We examined benthic invertebrate assemblages in 45 samples collected from near-natural sites of several large rivers: Sava, Drava, Mura, Kupa and Una. The near-natural benthic invertebrate assemblages of large rivers contained several rare or remarkable species, especially among stoneflies, e.g., Marthamea vitripennis, Xanthoperla apicalis. We compared benthic invertebrate communities in river sections with fine and coarse substrates and in three eco-hydromorphological (ECO-HM) types of large rivers, reflecting habitat heterogeneity: lowland-deep, lowland-braided and intermountain. Multivariate analysis of variance (PERMANOVA) was used to statistically evaluate similarities among assemblages. It was found that the composition of benthic invertebrate assemblages varied by both ECO-HM types and substrate category. Similarity percentage (SIMPER) analysis showed that the average dissimilarity of benthic invertebrate assemblages was high between all ECO-HM type pairs and between fine and coarse substrate. We found that habitat heterogeneity and substrate independently influenced benthic invertebrate assemblages. To achieve ecological goals in the management of large rivers, in addition to functionality, a holistic view with at least near-natural assemblages, including the names of the taxa present, should also be considered