RECORD Catchment
Assessment and Modeling of Coupled Ecological and Hydrological Dynamics in the Restored Corridor of a River
River restoration is an essential tool to achieve "good ecological status” of water courses as required by European and Swiss legislation. Although the number of restoration projects has increased in recent years, scientific understanding of the underlying principles determining how hydromorphological variability in restored corridors of rivers relates to
- ecosystem functioning,
- biodiversity and
- water quality
is still limited. Our objective is to increase mechanistic understanding of coupled hydrological and ecological processes in near-river corridors. For this purpose, we are
- instrumenting a restored and a channelized section of the Swiss River Thur as large-scale field experimental sites, where we will quantify how the relevant variables influence (ground)water quality, ecosystem functioning and biodiversity;
- performing controlled experiments at the field sites and in the lab;
- developing process-based models of coupled hydrological, biogeochemical and ecological processes, facilitating transfer to other river systems undergoing restoration.