The use of hydro-ecological models in the Netherlands

Abstract

On 25 May 1993 the Technical Meeting 51 of the TNO Committee on Hydrological Research (CHO-TNO) was held in Ede, the Netherlands, on the theme: "The use of hydro-ecological models in the Netherlands". This meeting, organized in cooperation with the Dutch Association for Landscape Ecology (WLO), was a follow-up of the WLO-meeting "Hydro-ecological prediction methods for Policy and Management", held in Ede, the Netherlands, on 15 November 1991. The main target of the meeting was to offer the potential users a better insight into the available hydro-ecological model types, and to show makers of models the possibilities of other methods. This publication contains the papers presented at this meeting. In the Netherlands one of the largest environmental stresses to vegetations in nature reserves is the structural lowering of the ground water levels and the physical and chemical alterations, triggered by this lowering, at the site of these vegetations. Manmade interventions in the water management cause this environmental stress leading to adversal ecological effects. In the Netherlands this environmental stress is called "verdroging". In the English language an equivalent term does not exist, so in this publication different (Dutch) authors use different (litteral) terms. You will find the terms "drought damage" in nature conservation areas (Claessen, Witte et al.), "desiccation" (Latour, Barendregt et al.) and "verdroging" (Garritsen). Another term used in this publication is "dehydration of wetlands and forests". In fact all these terms mean the same, but the taste of the authors is different