OVERVIEW
Data analysis and publication of the multiple effects of riparian buffers on the GBI ecological values portfolio is ongoing!
Please check back here later for an overview of buffer outcomes once these analyses are done!
In the meantime ....
Some of the more specific effects of riparian buffers on selected ecological values are summarized here (see links for more details):
Habitat:
Data analysis and publication of the multiple effects of riparian buffers on the GBI ecological values portfolio is ongoing!
Please check back here later for an overview of buffer outcomes once these analyses are done!
In the meantime ....
Some of the more specific effects of riparian buffers on selected ecological values are summarized here (see links for more details):
Habitat:
- Across all four case study catchments, woody riparian buffers improve riparian habitat integrity.
- In the urban Norwegian case study, riparian buffers improve habitats for fish. However, positive effects on fish are increasingly constrained with increasing levels of water pollution.
- Woody riparian buffers help to create habitats more suited for web building spiders, but ground hunting spiders preferred more open habitats in both the Romanian and Swedish case studies
- Also in Sweden, riparian buffers are associated with more shaded and heterogenous stream substrates
- Riparian buffers can lead to improvements in key macroinvertebrate ecological status metrics, including the average score per taxon and EPT indices. However, the efficacy of buffers for invertebrates is reduced at very high levels of land use impact.
- In the urban Oslo basin (Norway), riparian buffers improve ecological status for freshwater diatom algae. Once again, these positive effects were limited as the overall level of urban impact increased
- Even smaller sized patches of riparian vegetation can be beneficial for biodiversity of terrestrial and/or aquatic invertebrates in Belgium and Romania
- Riparian buffers can enhance the connectivity of freshwater and terrestrial habitats by increasing consumption of the adult stages of aquatic insects by some terrestrial predators
- Forested riparian zones favour types of aquatic insects that are more likely to disperse further as adults potentially enhancing ecological connectivity further
- Woody riparian buffers in the urban Oslo basin (Norway) increase connectivity between water and land by promoting dietary shifts of fish towards terrestrial-sourced carbon
- A "proof of principle" optimisation framework developed for the heavily impacted Belgian case study demonstrates that representative biodiversity, ecosystem functioning and ecological status metrics all benefit from the expansion of riparian forests. While optimization results showed only small functional trade-offs among the three environmental objectives, strong trade-offs could be observed between environmental objectives and potential losses in agricultural production value.