Biology

Research Organisation Partners

• Institute for Water of the Republic of Slovenia
•  College of Ptuj

Abstract

Sustainable water management is one of the key topics of sustainable development. With the adoption of the Framework Water Directive, the European Union has set itself the aim of achieving good water status by 2027. In this research, we address the question of the importance of knowing the various hydromorphological characteristics of watercourses for successful water management (Water Framework Directive 2000/60/EC, River Basin Management Plans for the Danube water area and for the Adriatic Sea water area for the period 2023-2027), which is directly related to the assessment of the impact of interventions on the hydromorphological state of watercourses, for which guidelines for the implementation of interventions on watercourses must be prepared. For a more detailed definition of the hydromorphological characteristics of watercourses, the European standard SIST EN 14614:2020 Water quality – Guidance standard for assessing the hydromorphological features of rivers was developed, which determines the method of defining the hydromorphological types of watercourses. In addition to the stated standard, numerous methodologies and contributions to the development of methodologies for determining hydromorphological types have been developed in Slovenia in the past. In the research project, first of all, in addition to the European standard, we will study the developed methods of hydromorphological typology of watercourses, as well as the contributions developed in Slovenia and meaningfully include them in the development of the Slovenian hydromorphological typology. Based on the review of methodologies and findings, we will develop a methodology for hydromorphological typology of watercourses, which will be based on hydromorphological characteristics important for watercourses in Slovenia.  First of all, we will prepare spatial units for the creation of hydromorphological typology, which takes into account the hierarchical organization of watercourses. The river network in the territory of the country of Slovenia will be demarcated into spatial units according to the concept of a hierarchically structured system as provided for in the SIST EN 14614:2020 standard. Spatial levels from regions to river sections will primarily be defined on the basis of natural conditions, while defining reaches will also take into account anthropogenic influences or hydromorphological alterations. The aim of the delimitation will be to obtain spatial units with relatively homogeneous environmental characteristics - parameter values ​​(e.g. sinuosity, braided planform and anabranching planform and the dominant bed substrate). For spatial units, the delimitation of which will be based on the simultaneous consideration of several parameters (e.g. regional units, sections and reaches), the final delimitation will be determined based on a combination of several layers in such a way that in each spatial unit the maximum internal consistency of the considered parameters will generally be achieved. When determining the value of some parameters (e.g. the dominant bed substrate, the dominant flow type), we will use the existing data obtained from the survey of hydromorphological characteristics of watercourses in the development of methods for evaluating the ecological status. Spatial and environmental data will be combined and analyzed within a geographic information system using ArcGIS software (Esri, 2014) and some extensions (e.g. Spatial Analyst, ArcHydro, VCA). For spatial units with missing data on selected characteristics, we will conduct surveys of hydromorphological characteristics in the field. For the selected parameters, we will perform a co-occurrence analysis and prepare a description and layer of hydromorphological types of watercourses with a catchment area >10 km2. Finally, we will compare the developed layer of hydromorphological types with the layers of ecological types and fish types and provide an evaluation of the agreement.

Researchers

• Gorazd Urbanič
• Igor Zelnik
• Mateja Germ
• Aleksandra Golob
• Nik Ojdanič
• Miha Knehtl
• Luka Javornik
• Barbara Debeljak
• Maja Pavlin Urbanič
• David Bogataj
• David Haložan

The phases of the project and their realization