Welcome to the CROSSLINK Learning Environment
CROSSLINK is a European BiodivERsA research project that focuses on woody riparian buffers as a key component of landscape-level green infrastructure capable of mitigating human pressures and enhancing biodiversity and ecosystem services delivery in stream and river networks.


The CROSSLINK learning environment compiles learning from the project on the benefits woody riparian buffers can provide, models and frameworks for optimising riparian network design, and information on survey methods for quantifying ecological values of stream-riparian networks

NEW! RIPARIAN OPTIMISATION ARTICLE NOW AVAILABLE HERE!!

Introducing CROSSLINK
A short video introduction: with English subtitles

Learning: Key project findings and recommendations

Project goals, partners, and the four CROSSLINK study basins encompassing urban and agricultural settings in Norway, Sweden, Romania and Belgium (including information in local languages)
Streams and their riparian corridors as key components of landscape "blue and green infrastructure", and the key environmental, biodiversity and ecosystem service values in focus for CROSSLINK
Which environmental, biodiversity and ecosystem service values are altered by woody riparian buffers, and how are those effects altered by buffer strip characteristics and agricultural and urban land use?
General conclusions and recommendations addressing the benefits of riparian buffers, and how variation in buffer characteristics and land use intensity regulates those benefits

Tools and outputs

Field protocols for quantifying biodiversity, ecosystem functioning and habitat quality in stream-riparian networks
An optimization framework for stream-riparian green-blue infrastructure has been developed to identify synergies and trade-offs among different environmental and socio-economic objectives. The optimization tool is used to assess riparian land management strategies (esp. related to reforestation) from the perspective of multifunctionality, and to reduce land use conflicts in floodplain areas.
A decision support tool based on data from all four case study basins especially aimed at the Water Framework Directive
Open access publications from CROSSLINK, and links to additional publications

PARTNERS AND FUNDERS

1) Coordinating institution, Fyrisån catchment: Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala
2) Oslo Basin: Norwegian Institute of Water Sciences (NIVA)
3) Zwalm catchment: University of Ghent, Belgium
4) Arges Basin: University of Bucharest, Romania
5) Computational Landscape Ecology: Helmholtz Centre of Environmental Research, Leipzig Germany
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CROSSLINK is funded through the 2015–2016 BiodivERsA COFUND call for research proposals. National funders: the Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development (FORMAS, project 2016-01945) and the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency; The Research Council of Norway (NFR, project 264499); The Research Foundation of Flanders (FWO, project G0H6516N), Belgium; the Romanian National Authority for Scientific Research and Innovation (CCCDI–UEFISCDI, project BiodivERsA3-2015-49-CROSSLINK, within PNCDI III); and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF, project FKZ: 01LC1621A), Germany.