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VIEWPOINT
Catchment Research Group, Cardi School of Biosciences, Cardi University, Cardi CF10 3US, UK
Environment Agency, North West Region, Richard Fairclough House, Knutsford Road, Warrington WA4 1HG, UK
c
Department of Geography, Kings College London, Strand, London WC2R 2LS, UK
d
Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Wallingford, Oxfordshire, OX10 8BB, UK
e
National Fisheries Technical Team, Environment Agency, University of Bangor, School of Biological Sciences, Deiniol Road,
Bangor, Gwynedd LL57 2UW, UK
f
Department of Geography, University of Exeter, Cornwall Campus, Treliever Road, Penryn, Cornwall, TR10 9EZ, UK
g
School of Geography, University of Southampton, Higheld, SO17 1BJ, UK
h
School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, London, E1 4NS, UK
b
ABSTRACT
1. The assessment of links between ecology and physical habitat has become a major issue in river research and
management. Key drivers include concerns about the conservation implications of human modications (e.g.
abstraction, climate change) and the explicit need to understand the ecological importance of hydromorphology
as prescribed by the EUs Water Framework Directive. Eorts are focusing on the need to develop ecohydromorphology at the interface between ecology, hydrology and uvial geomorphology. Here, the scope of
this emerging eld is dened, some research and development issues are suggested, and a path for development is
sketched out.
2. In the short term, major research priorities are to use existing literature or data better to identify patterns
among organisms, ecological functions and river hydromorphological character. Another early priority is to
identify model systems or organisms to act as research foci. In the medium term, the investigation of pattern
processes linkages, spatial structuring, scaling relationships and system dynamics will advance mechanistic
understanding. The eects of climate change, abstraction and river regulation, eco-hydromorphic resistance/
resilience, and responses to environmental disturbances are likely to be management priorities. Large-scale
catchment projects, in both rural and urban locations, should be promoted to concentrate collaborative eorts,
to attract nancial support and to raise the prole of eco-hydromorphology.
3. Eco-hydromorphological expertise is currently fragmented across the main contributory disciplines (ecology,
hydrology, geomorphology, ood risk management, civil engineering), potentially restricting research and
development. This is paradoxical given the shared vision across these elds for eective river management based
on good science with social impact. A range of approaches is advocated to build sucient, integrated capacity
that will deliver science of real management value over the coming decades.
Copyright # 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Received 23 February 2007; Revised 11 June 2007; Accepted 1 July 2007
KEY WORDS:
*Correspondence to: Dr Ian Vaughan, Catchment Research Group, Cardi School of Biosciences, Cardi University, Cardi CF10 3US,
UK. E-mail: vaughanip@cardi.ac.uk
114
INTRODUCTION
For over 40 years, issues of water quality have dominated river
research, management and conservation } driven by seminal
publications (e.g. Hynes, 1960), by widespread problems from
point or diuse pollution sources, and by major legislation (e.g.
the UK Water Acts of 1973, 1983; the US Clean Water Act
1977). Although interest in relationships between river organisms
and their physical habitat is also long-standing (e.g. Riley, 1921;
Percival and Whitehead, 1929), emphasis on this has generally
been less. This balance is currently being re-dressed for several
reasons. Globally, there is a need to understand the ecological
eects of a wide range of changes in physical habitat, as rivers are
increasingly exploited, regulated or otherwise modied through
ood-defence engineering, impoundment, river restoration,
climate change and the spread of alien species. Across Europe,
the Water Framework Directive (WFD; 2000/60/EC) has been
the major legislative driver by specifying that hydromorphology
should underpin good ecological status (European Commission,
2000). The improvements in water quality in Europe and North
America over recent decades mean that hydromorphic limits on
ecological quality are becoming increasingly apparent. Finally,
the recognition that these problems require multi-disciplinary
solutions has stimulated dialogue between physical scientists and
biologists whose shared vision is of more eective river science
and management.
River conservation has much to gain in this renewed push
for an improved understanding of ecologyphysical habitat
relationships. Hydromorphological integrity is central to
conservation since it provides the template upon which all
other ecological structures and functions are built. Furthermore,
in seeking good ecological status by sensitive management at
whole basin scales, rather than in the channel or riparian zone
alone, the WFD has become a highly signicant element in
wider river conservation. With hydromorphology an explicit
component of the Directive, the need to understand links to
ecology and conservation are clear.
Three important observations can be made regarding the links
between river ecology and hydromorphology. First, current
scientic understanding is generally poor, especially at the
quantitative levels required for eective prediction and
management. This is despite scientic literature stretching back
more than 80 years (Riley, 1921; Percival and Whitehead, 1929),
and comprising many thousands of peer-reviewed publications.
Numerous } mainly observational } studies have described
links between biological pattern, ecological processes, and river
form and physical processes, yet the underlying mechanisms are
often known only in outline. Relationships in riparian and
oodplain environments are less widely studied than those in the
wetted channel, highlighting the need to consider whole
catchments and river landscapes in the development of ecohydromorphic research (Eyre et al., 2002).
Secondly, improved understanding of ecologyhydromorphology is a pressing need if the timetable and aims of key
river legislation are to be met (e.g. for statutory regulation or
programmes of measures under the WFD). Major challenges
arise in distinguishing the inuences of hydromorphic
modications on organisms or processes from other potentially
confounding eects such as pollution (Allan, 2004). Biological
indicators of physical modication are still preliminary, rarely
described or poorly founded, while few biological models
diagnose how physical eects contribute to biological
Eco-hydromorphology extends beyond ecology, geomorphology and hydrology into other contributing elds (e.g.
civil engineering, economics, social sciences) and the majority
of research is not labelled as being eco-hydromorphic (or any
of the other phrases coined) per se. Similarly, it spans both
pure and applied science, academia and regulatory agencies.
This diversity has increasingly been recognized, along with
the consequent needs to engage a disparate research and
management community, and to foster greater interdisciplinary collaboration (Gurnell et al., 2000; Hannah
et al., 2004). Unfortunately, there is little evidence that these
developments are reected in the composition of research
programmes. Hannah et al. (2004) assessed the authorship of
research papers involving the term ecohydrology (and
derivatives thereof) and found that collaborating university
researchers very rarely came from more than one academic
department. It seems that while the eco-hydromorphic
interface can be clearly dened, it is poorly developed, and
unless this situation can be addressed it could seriously
handicap the development of the science.
115
116
Scale
The results of research are conditional upon the scale(s) of
observation (Wiens, 1989). For example, the relationships
between organisms and their environment may appear to
change with the scale of observation in both space and time
(Wiley et al., 1997; Malmqvist, 2002). Hence, to understand a
Variability
The variability and dynamics of river environments present a
serious research challenge, yet need to be understood for
successful river management (Thoms, 2006). In the rst
instance, empirical study is required to characterize the
variation that occurs (including rates and magnitudes of
change) and this needs to be followed by an understanding of
the role of variability in eco-hydromorphic processes. From a
conservation viewpoint, the observed variability is important
117
118
Addressing uncertainty
The importance of uncertainty in research and management
has long been recognized, yet rarely addressed adequately.
Uncertainty derives from a range of sources, including
measurement errors, the weak science-base for much of ecohydromorphology, conicting evidence about a phenomenon,
and issues } especially in the future } that can never be
known (Van Asselt and Rotmans, 2002). It is vital that
uncertainty be addressed explicitly in many situations, to avoid
over-estimating condence in conclusions or predictions, or
setting unrealistic goals for management (Clark, 2002). River
restoration projects provide a good example, being inherently
complex and involving a high degree of uncertainty from a
range of sources } especially when projects are viewed over
geomorphologically relevant timescales (Sear et al., in press).
Explicitly acknowledging uncertainties provides a way of
managing unrealistic stakeholder and societal expectations
(Clark, 2002; Rogers, 2006).
Frameworks are required that consider uncertainty, along
with tools with which to describe or quantify it (Clark, 2002).
On one level, analyses that handle known uncertainties such as
measurement error can be adopted readily. Recent
developments using Bayesian statistics, information-gap
theory and other methods illustrate how this may be possible
in eco-hydromorphology (Regan et al., 2005; Halpern et al.,
2006). At a higher level, frameworks for placing management
within the context of all uncertainties } known and unknown
} are being developed (Johnson and Brown, 2001).
119
120
Informal literature
search
Literature
reviewing
Knowledge gap
Legislation
Key questions
Expert
opinion
New data
collection
Analysis of
existing data
Science base
Basic science
Tools
Detailed
policy
Practice &
management
depending upon the rigour of both the methods used and those
of the contributing studies or data resources (Figure 2).
Literature reviews are potentially far more valuable than any
individual study owing to the accumulated mass of evidence,
especially if comparable studies are performed under nonidentical conditions, helping to reveal how general the ndings
are over space and time (Lindsay and Ehrenberg, 1993).
These should result in a critically appraised body of ecohydromorphic research, which could, in turn, feed into both
pure and applied outputs (Figure 1). Eco-hydromorphology
could contribute to basic science in a wide range of areas, both
in terms of general theory (e.g. diversity and ecosystem
functioning, ecologyphysical habitat interactions) and in the
ways that rivers dier from terrestrial and marine systems
(FBA, 2005). In applied areas, eco-hydromorphic research
should help to generate an evidence base for river management
(Sutherland et al., 2004) and underpin management tools (e.g.
decision support frameworks or bioassessments of
hydromorphological pressures). From all of these outputs,
and indeed from preceding stages in the framework, feedback is
anticipated to the early stages, representing further renement
of the knowledge gaps and key questions (Figure 1).
Research
Literature
reviewing
New data
collection
Systematic
review
121
Analysis of
existing data
Dedicated, replicated
experimental manipulations
Before-after comparisons
Experiments e.g.
data collected
before and after
flood defence works
Data mining
No evidence-base
Figure 2. A ladder of evidence describing the relative strengths of literature reviewing, analyses of existing data and new data collection. New
investigations form the main body of the ladder, with stronger research methods and scientic inference encountered on higher rungs. Results from
most investigations can contribute to the overall evidence base (dotted lines). Literature and data-based research are plotted on the same scale, such
122
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This paper resulted from a workshop (Linking Physical
Habitat Structure to Riverine Biodiversity) held as part of the
UK Population Biology Network (UK PopNet), funded by the
Natural Environment Research Council (Agreement R8-H1201) and English Nature. Further funding was provided by the
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