Distinct indicators of land use and hydrology characterize different aspects of riverine phytoplankton communities.

Given the many threats to freshwater biodiversity, we need to be able to resolve which of the multiple stressors present in rivers are most important in driving change. Phytoplankton are a key component of the aquatic ecosystem, their abundance, species richness and functional richness are important indicators of ecosystem health. In this study, spatial variables, physiochemical conditions, water flow alterations and land use patterns were considered as the joint stressors from a lowland rural catchment. A modeling approach combining an ecohydrological model with machine learning was applied. The results implied that land use and flow regime, rather than nutrients, were most important in explaining differences in the phytoplankton community. In particular, the percentage of water body area and medium level residential urban area were key to driving the rising phytoplankton abundance in this rural catchment. The proportion of forest and pasture area were the leading factors controlling the variations of species richness. In this case deciduous forest cover affected the species richness in a positive way, while, pasture share had a negative effect. Indicators of hydrological alteration were found to be the best predictors for the differences in functional richness. This integrated model framework was found to be suitable for analysis of complex environmental conditions in river basin management. A key message would be the significance of forest area preservation and ecohydrological restoration in maintaining both phytoplankton richness and their functional role in river ecosystems.

Causative classification of river flood events.

A wide variety of processes controls the time of occurrence, duration, extent, and severity of river floods. Classifying flood events by their causative processes may assist in enhancing the accuracy of local and regional flood frequency estimates and support the detection and interpretation of any changes in flood occurrence and magnitudes. This paper provides a critical review of existing causative classifications of instrumental and preinstrumental series of flood events, discusses their validity and applications, and identifies opportunities for moving toward more comprehensive approaches. So far no unified definition of causative mechanisms of flood events exists. Existing frameworks for classification of instrumental and preinstrumental series of flood events adopt different perspectives: hydroclimatic (large-scale circulation patterns and atmospheric state at the time of the event), hydrological (catchment scale precipitation patterns and antecedent catchment state), and hydrograph-based (indirectly considering generating mechanisms through their effects on hydrograph characteristics). All of these approaches intend to capture the flood generating mechanisms and are useful for characterizing the flood processes at various spatial and temporal scales. However, uncertainty analyses with respect to indicators, classification methods, and data to assess the robustness of the classification are rarely performed which limits the transferability across different geographic regions. It is argued that more rigorous testing is needed. There are opportunities for extending classification methods to include indicators of space-time dynamics of rainfall, antecedent wetness, and routing effects, which will make the classification schemes even more useful for understanding and estimating floods. This article is categorized under:Science of Water > Water ExtremesScience of Water > Hydrological ProcessesScience of Water > Methods.

Hydrological and environmental variables outperform spatial factors in structuring species, trait composition, and beta diversity of pelagic algae.

There has been increasing interest in algae-based bioassessment, particularly, trait-based approaches are increasingly suggested. However, the main drivers, especially the contribution of hydrological variables, of species composition, trait composition, and beta diversity of algae communities are less studied. To link species and trait composition to multiple factors (i.e., hydrological variables, local environmental variables, and spatial factors) that potentially control species occurrence/abundance and to determine their relative roles in shaping species composition, trait composition, and beta diversities of pelagic algae communities, samples were collected from a German lowland catchment, where a well-proven ecohydrological modeling enabled to predict long-term discharges at each sampling site. Both trait and species composition showed significant correlations with hydrological, environmental, and spatial variables, and variation partitioning revealed that the hydrological and local environmental variables outperformed spatial variables. A higher variation of trait composition (57.0%) than species composition (37.5%) could be explained by abiotic factors. Mantel tests showed that both species and trait-based beta diversities were mostly related to hydrological and environmental heterogeneity with hydrological contributing more than environmental variables, while purely spatial impact was less important. Our findings revealed the relative importance of hydrological variables in shaping pelagic algae community and their spatial patterns of beta diversities, emphasizing the need to include hydrological variables in long-term biomonitoring campaigns and biodiversity conservation or restoration. A key implication for biodiversity conservation was that maintaining the instream flow regime and keeping various habitats among rivers are of vital importance. However, further investigations at multispatial and temporal scales are greatly needed.

Riverine phytoplankton shifting along a lentic-lotic continuum under hydrological, physiochemical conditions and species dispersal.

The importance of phytoplankton-based bio-assessment has been recently recognized in lowland rivers which are affected by multi-environmental factors. However, some basic questions remain unclear to date, such as: (i) spatial and temporal variations of phytoplankton, (ii) the impact of upstream lakes on downstream community, (iii) the main drivers for species composition or (iv) the regional biodiversity along a lentic-lotic continuum. To answer these questions, we collected and analyzed the fluvial phytoplankton communities along a lentic-lotic continuum from a German lowland catchment, where a well-established ecohydrological modeling predicted long-term discharges at each sampling site. Our results revealed very high spatial and temporal variations of phytoplankton community. The changes of a lake on downstream phytoplankton assemblages were significant, especially the nearest reach after the lake. However, these influences varied along with seasons and limited in a relatively short distance to the lake. Redundancy analysis and Mantel tests showed that phytoplankton composition and dissimilarities along the lentic-lotic continuum attributed more to local hydrological and physicochemical variables than species dispersal, which confirmed the suitability of lowland phytoplankton-based bioassessment. In addition, our findings highlighted the importance of flow regime in shaping phytoplankton community composition and regional beta diversities. This study emphasized the necessity to include the hydrological variables and their relationship with phytoplankton community in future bio-monitoring investigations.

Assessing the impacts of Best Management Practices on nitrate pollution in an agricultural dominated lowland catchment considering environmental protection versus economic development.

Water quality is strongly affected by nitrate inputs in agricultural catchments. Best Management Practices (BMPs) are alternative practices aiming to mitigate the impacts derived from agricultural activities and to improve water quality. Management activities are influenced by different governmental policies like the Water Framework Directive (WFD) and the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG). Their distinct goals can be contrasting and hamper an integrated sustainable development. Both need to be addressed in the actual conjuncture in rural areas. Ecohydrological models like the SWAT model are important tools for land cover and land use changes investigation and the assessment of BMPs implementation effects on water quality. Thus, in this study, buffer strip, fertilization reduction and alternative crops were considered as BMPs and were implemented in the SWAT model for the Treene catchment. Their efficiency in terms of nitrate loads reduction related to implementation costs at the catchment scale was investigated. The practices correspond to the catchment conditions and are based on small and mid areal changes. Furthermore, the BMPs were evaluated from the perspective of ecologic and economic policies. The results evidenced different responses of the BMPs. The critical periods in winter were addressed by most of the BMPs. However, some practices like pasture land increase need to be implemented in greater area for better results in comparison to current activities. Furthermore, there is a greater nitrate reduction potential by combining BMPs containing fertilization reduction, buffer strips and soil coverage in winter. The discussion about efficiency showed the complexity of costs stipulation and the relation with arable land and yield losses. Furthermore, as the government policies can be divergent an integrated approach considering all the involved actors is important and seeks a sustainable development.

Eco-hydrologic model cascades: Simulating land use and climate change impacts on hydrology, hydraulics and habitats for fish and macroinvertebrates.

Climate and land use changes affect the hydro- and biosphere at different spatial scales. These changes alter hydrological processes at the catchment scale, which impact hydrodynamics and habitat conditions for biota at the river reach scale. In order to investigate the impact of large-scale changes on biota, a cascade of models at different scales is required. Using scenario simulations, the impact of climate and land use change can be compared along the model cascade. Such a cascade of consecutively coupled models was applied in this study. Discharge and water quality are predicted with a hydrological model at the catchment scale. The hydraulic flow conditions are predicted by hydrodynamic models. The habitat suitability under these hydraulic and water quality conditions is assessed based on habitat models for fish and macroinvertebrates. This modelling cascade was applied to predict and compare the impacts of climate- and land use changes at different scales to finally assess their effects on fish and macroinvertebrates. Model simulations revealed that magnitude and direction of change differed along the modelling cascade. Whilst the hydrological model predicted a relevant decrease of discharge due to climate change, the hydraulic conditions changed less. Generally, the habitat suitability for fish decreased but this was strongly species-specific and suitability even increased for some species. In contrast to climate change, the effect of land use change on discharge was negligible. However, land use change had a stronger impact on the modelled nitrate concentrations affecting the abundances of macroinvertebrates. The scenario simulations for the two organism groups illustrated that direction and intensity of changes in habitat suitability are highly species-dependent. Thus, a joined model analysis of different organism groups combined with the results of hydrological and hydrodynamic models is recommended to assess the impact of climate and land use changes on river ecosystems.

A Modelling Framework to Assess the Effect of Pressures on River Abiotic Habitat Conditions and Biota.

River biota are affected by global reach-scale pressures, but most approaches for predicting biota of rivers focus on river reach or segment scale processes and habitats. Moreover, these approaches do not consider long-term morphological changes that affect habitat conditions. In this study, a modelling framework was further developed and tested to assess the effect of pressures at different spatial scales on reach-scale habitat conditions and biota. Ecohydrological and 1D hydrodynamic models were used to predict discharge and water quality at the catchment scale and the resulting water level at the downstream end of a study reach. Long-term reach morphology was modelled using empirical regime equations, meander migration and 2D morphodynamic models. The respective flow and substrate conditions in the study reach were predicted using a 2D hydrodynamic model, and the suitability of these habitats was assessed with novel habitat models. In addition, dispersal models for fish and macroinvertebrates were developed to assess the re-colonization potential and to finally compare habitat suitability and the availability/ability of species to colonize these habitats. Applicability was tested and model performance was assessed by comparing observed and predicted conditions in the lowland Treene River in northern Germany. Technically, it was possible to link the different models, but future applications would benefit from the development of open source software for all modelling steps to enable fully automated model runs. Future research needs concern the physical modelling of long-term morphodynamics, feedback of biota (e.g., macrophytes) on abiotic habitat conditions, species interactions, and empirical data on the hydraulic habitat suitability and dispersal abilities of macroinvertebrates. The modelling framework is flexible and allows for including additional models and investigating different research and management questions, e.g., in climate impact research as well as river restoration and management.