Search

Mitigation

Some activities, such as infrastructure works, result in physical modifications of the river’s hydromorphology and habitats. These can have a negative impact for the river and its fauna and can be reduced through the implementation of mitigation measures such as: ...

Towards the restoration of rivers and aquatic environments

...

Diagnosing alterations in rivers

The state of aquatic ecosystems is based on parameters that determine their functioning characteristics. Several categories of parameters are generally distinguished: ...

Physical restoration of rivers

Changes in the morphology of rivers are one of the main obstacles to achieving good ecological status of aquatic environments. This assessment led the European Commission to the launch of an action plan to safeguard Europe’s water resources: the Blueprint. It is thus necessary to launch operations to restore the hydromorphology of rivers, based on good ecological-engineering practices and managed by local entities. ...

Preservation

If the morphological and ecological functioning of the river is good, preservation actions could be implemented to maintain this status and avoid potential impacts, such a as: ...

Organizing the implementation

To preserve or restore rivers at a catchment or basin scale, an action plan must be defined to identify and organize actions to be implemented. ...

Stakeholders and communication

A river restoration project involves local communities and many different stakeholders, at different levels and with various functions. A description of the various actors of a river restoration project and their role is proposed in the “Who is involved in a river restoration project?” section. ...

Partnership

Restoration operations cannot be limited to the technical aspects of each project. A hydromorphological restoration is an economic, social, environmental, cultural and political project that often concerns an area much larger than the local area where the work takes place. ...

Diagnosing and planning

A complete diagnosis of the aquatic environment is a first step to any restoration measure. ...

Why restore ?

Humans alter the shape of rivers for centuries: river channelling, concreting of riverbanks, dam or dikes construction... This deterioration lies at the origin of habitat fragmentation, depletion of aquatic population and aquatic environments services degradation such as flood and drought regulation, self-purification of water, flood plains fertilization or recreational areas... Alterations of morphology and of flow regime has become now one of the main factors responsible for river...