Riparian vegetation responses to altered flow regimes driven by climate change in Mediterranean rivers

Rivaes, Rui; Rodríguez‐González, Patricia María; Albuquerque, António; Pinheiro, António N.; Egger, Gregory; Ferreira, Maria Teresa

doi:10.1002/eco.1287

Cited by 64 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 71 publications

(70 reference statements)

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“…, Rivaes et al. , ). Recent applications of 2D hydraulic models have described how flooding regimes may shift in response to direct anthropogenic regulation of hydrology, climatic forcings, and their interactions (Karim et al.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

River‐valley morphology, basin size, and flow‐event magnitude interact to produce wide variation in flooding dynamics

2019

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Inundation dynamics are a key driver of ecosystem form and function in river-valley bottoms.Inundation itself is an outcome of multi-scalar interactions and can vary strongly within and among river reaches. As a result, establishing to what degree and how inundation dynamics vary spatially both within and among river reaches can be challenging. The objective of this study was to understand how river-valley morphology, basin size, and flow-event magnitude interact to affect inundation dynamics in river-valley bottoms. We used 2D hydraulic models to simulate inundation in four river reaches from Maryland's Piedmont physiographic province, and qualitatively and quantitatively summarized within-and amongreach patterns of inundation extent, duration, depth, shear stress, and wetting frequencies. On average, reaches from confined valley settings experienced less extensive flooding, shorter durations and shallower depths, stronger gradients of maximum shear stress, and relatively infrequent wetting compared to reaches from unconfined settings. These patterns were generally consistent across flow-event magnitudes. Patterns of within-reach flooding across event magnitudes revealed complex interactions between hydrology and surface topography. We concluded that valley morphology had a greater impact on flooding patterns than basin size: Inundation patterns were more consistent across reaches of similar morphology than similar basin size, but absolute values of inundation characteristics varied between large and small basins. Our results showed that the manifestation of out-of-bank flows in valley floors can vary widely depending on geomorphic context, even within a single physiographic province, which suggests that hydrologic and hydraulic conditions experienced on the valley floor may not be well represented by existing hydrologic metrics derived from discharge data alone. We thus support the notion that 2D hydraulic models can be useful hydrometric tools for cross-scale investigations of floodplain ecosystems.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

River‐valley morphology, basin size, and flow‐event magnitude interact to produce wide variation in flooding dynamics

2019

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“…Depth and mean flow velocity were measured at similar spacing segments along each cross section during at least two field campaigns of contrasting flows. This information was later used for the calibration of the hydraulic models (García‐Arias et al, ; Rivaes et al, ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring the key drivers of riparian woodland successional pathways across three European river reaches

et al. 2017

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International audienceClimate change and river regulation are negatively impacting riparian vegetation. To evaluate these impacts, process‐based models are preferred over data‐driven approaches. However, they require extensive knowledge about ecohydrological processes. To facilitate the implementation of such process‐based models, the key drivers of riparian woodland successional pathways across three river reaches, in Austria, Portugal, and Spain, were explored, employing two complementary approaches. The principal component analyses highlighted the importance of the physical gradients determining the placement of the succession phases within the riparian and floodplain zones. The generalized additive models revealed that the initial and pioneer succession phases, characteristic of the colonization stage, appeared in areas highly morphodynamic, close in height and distance to the water table, and with coarse substrate, whereas elder phases within the transitional and mature stages showed incremental differences, occupying less dynamic areas with finer substrate. The Austrian site fitted well the current successional theory (elder phases appearing sequentially further up and distant), but at the Portuguese site, the tolerance of the riparian species to drought and flash flood events governed their placement. Finally, at the Spanish site, the patchy distribution of the elder phases was the remnants of formative events that reshaped the river channel. These results highlight the complex relationships between flow regime, channel morphology, and riparian vegetation. The use of succession phases, which rely on the sequential evolution of riparian vegetation as a response to different drivers, may be potentially better reproducible, within numerical process‐based models, and transferable to other geographical regions

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“…Actually, this issue is a global research topic, as all dams, weirs, and levees change the magnitudes of peak flood flows of rivers to a certain extent (e.g., FitzHugh and Vogel, 2010;Maheshwari et al, 1995;Miller et al, 2013;Nilsson and Berggren, 2000;Uddin et al, 2014a, b). As a result of this, there are still opportunities for the implementation of environmental flow restoration at hundreds of thousands of these structures worldwide (Richter and Thomas, 2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Importance of considering riparian vegetation requirements for the long-term efficiency of environmental flows in aquatic microhabitats

Rivaes

Boavida

Santos

et al. 2017

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Environmental flows remain biased toward the traditional biological group of fish species. Consequently, these flows ignore the inter-annual flow variability that rules species with longer lifecycles and therefore disregard the long-term perspective of the riverine ecosystem. We analyzed the importance of considering riparian requirements for the long-term efficiency of environmental flows. For that analysis, we modeled the riparian vegetation development for a decade facing different environmental flows in two case studies. Next, we assessed the corresponding fish habitat availability of three common fish species in each of the resulting riparian landscape scenarios. Modeling results demonstrated that the environmental flows disregarding riparian vegetation requirements promoted riparian degradation, particularly vegetation encroachment. Such circumstance altered the hydraulic characteristics of the river channel where flow depths and velocities underwent local changes of up to 10 cm and 40 cm s −1 , respectively. Accordingly, after a decade of this flow regime, the available habitat area for the considered fish species experienced modifications of up to 110 % when compared to the natural habitat. In turn, environmental flows regarding riparian vegetation requirements were able to maintain riparian vegetation near natural standards, thereby preserving the hydraulic characteristics of the river channel and sustaining the fish habitat close to the natural condition. As a result, fish habitat availability never changed more than 17 % from the natural habitat.

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Riparian vegetation responses to altered flow regimes driven by climate change in Mediterranean rivers

Cited by 64 publications

References 71 publications

River‐valley morphology, basin size, and flow‐event magnitude interact to produce wide variation in flooding dynamics

River‐valley morphology, basin size, and flow‐event magnitude interact to produce wide variation in flooding dynamics

Exploring the key drivers of riparian woodland successional pathways across three European river reaches

Importance of considering riparian vegetation requirements for the long-term efficiency of environmental flows in aquatic microhabitats

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