Criteria for identifying free-flowing river stretches for the EU Biodiversity Strategy 2030
Topics: How to do River Restoration, Habitat & Biodiversity, River continuity,
Regions: Greater Europe, Published: 23-06-2024 , ISBN: 978-92-68-18012-9 , Authors: European Commission, Joint Research Centre, van de Bund, W., Bartkova, T., Belka, K., Bussettini, M., Calleja, B., Christiansen, T., Goltara, A., Magdaleno, G., Mühlmann, H., Ofenböck, G., Parasiewicz, P., Peruzzi, C., Schmitt, K., Schultze, A., Reckendorfer, W. and Bastino, V., Criteria for identifying free-flowing river stretches for the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2024, https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2760/402517, JRC137919.
The aim is to provide a tool that can be used by authorities to determine the length of free-flowing rivers in their catchments. In addition, the tool can be used to predict the increase in free-flowing river length resulting from barrier removal and other restoration measures. This will help prioritising measures that can contribute to the 25,000 km target of the EU Biodiversity Strategy that should be restored into free-flowing rivers by 2030 through the removal of primarily obsolete barriers and the restoration of floodplains and wetlands.
Key elements of the method are (1) segmentation of the river into homogeneous reaches; (2) criteria for longitudinal, lateral, and vertical connectivity within a homogeneous reach; (3) a large-scale assessment taking into account sediment connectivity and migration barriers for target fish species; and (4) minimum length criteria to ensure hydromorphological processes and ecological functioning.