Environmental Monitoring and Protection and Biodiversity COnservation

This is a policy discussion paper aimed at addressing possible alternative approaches for environmental flows (e-Flows) assessment and identification within the context of best strategies for fluvial restoration. We focus on dammed rivers in Mediterranean regions. Fluvial species and their ecological integrity are the result of their evolutionary adaptation to river habitats. Flowing water is the main driver for development and maintenance of these habitats, which is why e-Flows are needed where societal demands are depleting water resources. Fluvial habitats are also shaped by the combined interaction of water, sediments, woody/organic material, and riparian vegetation. Water abstraction, flow regulation by dams, gravel pits or siltation by fine sediments eroded from hillslopes are pressures that can disturb interactions among water, sediments, and other constituents that create the habitats needed by fluvial communities. Present e-Flow design criteria are based only on water flow ...

In recent times, habitat models at the meso-scale have become widely accepted techniques to quantify the impact of hydro-morphological pressures on rivers. However, several limitations limit a broader applicability of such models: 1) field-based mesohabitat mapping is difficult in large nonwadable streams; 2) obtaining a reliable habitat-streamflow rating can be a highly time-consuming process, since it requires field mapping over many discharges; 3) the role of event-scale and medium term river morphodynamics, a crucial source of habitat variability, is mostly not accounted for. In this work we present the FHARMOR project, which aims at overcoming the above limitations, by exploring the application of complementary techniques to ground field measurements of mesohabitats, namely hydro-morpho-dynamic modeling and remote sensing techniques. This is tested on a suite of case studies featuring a gradient of hydro-morphological characteristics and channel size, located in the central-nor...

Within the framework of REFORM a thematic workshop on “Linking E-Flows to Sediment Dynamics” is organized in Rome in September 2015. A recent European Commission guidance on environmental flows [3] (e-flows) identifies a series of overall key indications to tackle some critical aspects linked to the management and restoration of water bodies affected by hydrological pressures in order to reach the environmental objectives of the European Water Framework Directive 2000/60/EC (WFD). Considering sediment dynamics and river morphology with hydrology and hydraulics in order to determine e-flows is one of these key indications and it is the topic of this thematic workshop. A panel of international experts, from relevant agencies and academia, will investigate how to identify a common approach to specify efficient e-flow based measures that consider river sediment dynamics and morphological evolution, in order to supplement the EU guidance on e-flows. The discussion will be drawn on the ne...

A partire dal mese di maggio del 2009 è stata promossa dal Ministero dell´Ambiente e della Tutela del Territorio e del Mare un’indagine all’interno di cinque aree naturali protette (Parco Nazionale delle Dolomiti Bellunesi (PNDB, Veneto),Parco dei Gessi bolognesi e dei Calanchi dell’Abbadessa (PGBCA, Emilia Romagna),Parco di Migliarino San Rossore Massaciuccoli (PMSRM, Toscana),Riserva Naturale Statale Litorale Romano (RNSLR, Lazio),Parco dei Monti Simbruini (PMS, Lazio) per verificare lo stato di salute delle api, attraverso osservazioni su eventuali fenomeni di moria o diminuzione numerica delle stesse, in seguito all’esposizione ad inquinanti di origine antropica. L’indagine è stata condotta dall’Istituto Superiore per la Protezione e la Ricerca Ambientale (ISPRA) in collaborazione con l’Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale delle Regioni Lazio e Toscana, l’Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale delle Venezie (IZS/VE), il Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie Agroambientali (DiSTA)...