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Project properties |
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| Title | Sharp river bends: opportunities for successful river restoration? |
| Group | Soil Geography and Landscape |
| Project type | thesis |
| Credits | 36 |
| Supervisor(s) | Jasper Candel (Soil, Geography and Landscape), Edwin Peeters (Aquatic Ecology and Water Quality Management) |
| Examiner(s) | Jasper Candel, Edwin Peeters |
| Contact info | Jasper Candel, Edwin Peeters |
| Begin date | 2022/05/20 |
| End date | 2023/12/31 |
| Description | Over the last years, many streams in The Netherlands have been re-meandered with the main aim to restore the riverine ecosystem as well as water quality. However, re-meandering of the river channel is a very costly measure, and hardly seems to result in improved water quality. The lack of water quality improvement may be the result of the random creation of bends, as the natural morphology of these rivers is hardly taken into account during restoration or maybe other factors play a crucial role. Many streams in lowlands naturally consist of very sharp bends, in which recirculation flows and deep scour holes occur and substrate is more organic relative to the more gentle-curved bends.
In this thesis the student will compare the macro-invertebrate species composition between river bends with different curvatures, and test the hypothesis that sharp river bends provide valuable habitat for many species compared to more gentle curved bends. The student will link the species composition to bend curvature, river discharge and river bed substrate. |
| Used skills | |
| Requirements | Identifying macroinvertebrates |