Riparian ecosystems are required to be preserved to achieve the good ecological status. The Water Framework Directive (WFD 2000/60/EC) specifically supports the assessment of new management tools that allow the European Member States to achieve the good ecological status of the river related ecosystems. Within several approaches, a dynamic riparian vegetation distributed model (CASiMiR-vegetation), with a time step of one year, has been selected as a useful first-step tool to achieve the WFD requirements. The model has been implemented into three river reaches with different climatic and hydrologic settings, located in three European countries. Common bases were established in the model set-up. The model was calibrated independently in the Kleblach reach (Drau River, Austria), the Ribeira reach (Odelouca River, Portugal), and the Terde reach (Mijares River, Spain) with simulation periods of 8, 11 and 41 years respectively. The parameters values and the results were comparable between the different countries. The calibration performance achieved high correctly classified instances (CCI ≈ 60%). Additionally, weighted kappa values ranged from 0.52 to 0.66 in distinguishing riparian succession phases. The model behaved similarly in the validation, even offering better results in most cases. This work demonstrates the applicability of this model in This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced PDF version following peer review of the article: García-Arias A., Francés F., Ferreira T., Egger G., Martínez-Capel F., Garófano-Gómez V., Andrés-Doménech I., Politti E., Rivaes R., Rodríguez-González P.M. (2013). Implementing a dynamic riparian vegetation model in three European river systems. Ecohydrology, 6(4):635-651. doi: 10.1002/eco.1331, which has been published in definitive publisher-authenticated form at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Global circulation models forecasts indicate a future temperature and rainfall pattern modification worldwide. Such phenomena will become particularly evident in Europe where climate modifications could be more severe than the average change at the global level. As such, river flow regimes are expected to change, with resultant impacts on aquatic and riparian ecosystems. Riparian woodlands are among the most endangered ecosystems on earth and provide vital services to interconnected ecosystems and human societies. However, they have not been the object of many studies designed to spatially and temporally quantify how these ecosystems will react to climate change-induced flow regimes. Our goal was to assess the effects of climate-changed flow regimes on the existing riparian vegetation of three different European flow regimes. Cases studies were selected in the light of the most common watershed alimentation modes occurring across European regions, with the objective of appraising expected alterations in the riparian elements of fluvial systems due to climate change. Riparian vegetation modeling was performed using the CASiMiR-vegetation model, which bases its computation on the fluvial disturbance of the riparian patch mosaic. Modeling results show that riparian woodlands may undergo not only at least moderate changes for all flow regimes, but also some dramatic adjustments in specific areas of particular vegetation development stages. There are circumstances in which complete annihilation is feasible. Pluvial flow regimes, like the ones in southern European rivers, are those likely to experience more pronounced changes. Furthermore, regardless of the flow regime, younger and more water-dependent individuals are expected to be the most affected by climate change.

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