An evaluation of management regimes to halt land use change in permanent protected catchment / Vurdering av arealbruksendringer i varig verna vassdrag
Kontakt / veileder: Knut Alfredsen/ Jo H. Halleraker
Sted Trondheim/field visits to selected catchments
Background and scope:
For species diversity and ecological status in both terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems, land-use change with loss or drastical alteration of habitats, has had the largest relative negative impact on nature since 1970 (IPBES 20191). Land use changes and the interlinkage between freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems as well as cumulative effects are less studied in a Norwegian context. The availability of physical data of land use change, from various sources (e.g. LIDAR – hoydedata.no, historical aerial photos – Norge i bilder, Remote sensing – Copernicus) and technologies (e.g. GIS based modelling, machine learning and artificial intelligence) that are relevant for ecological status have exploded the last decade. Still, there is a R&D need for a more effective ecological relevant use and management integration of such data, e.g. to assess cumulative ecological impacts, and quantify relative impact of multiple pressures on ecological indicators across spatial scale and nature types. Ca 25 % of the catchments in Norway are permanently protected, though a sequence of protection plans (Verneplan I – IV), to protect a variation in the Norwegian river nature
(https://www.miljostatus.no/vernede-vassdrag/). However, no real evaluation have been carried out to clarify if the more strict management regime have been successful, regarding land use change before versus after they become protected.
Hypothesis:
The management of permanent protected water courses (verna vassdrag ) in Norway do only partly ensure best approximation to ecological continuum and have been partly neglecting other land use change than large hydropower with significant impacts on biodiversity dependent on rivers”
R&D questions:
- - What is the relative impact and ecological effects from various significant physical alteration from land use (pressures) on ecological functioning (indicators)?
- - What is the status and impacts in Norwegian river corridors in protected water courses and to what extent have the national protection guidelines been followed?
- - To which extend do the Norwegian river management ensure best approximation to river continuum (according to WFD) and implementation of best available techniques for caretaking of biodiversity (according to the Biodiversity act)? With regards to both longitudional and lateral continuity for both sediments, species and energy of importance for ecological functions also for semi-aquatic nature types (e.g. floodplains)
- - Multiple stressors and its importance for management of river ecosystems
Material and methods:
- - Qualitative assessment of land use change from historical aerial photos (semi-automatical/or automatically) in a selection of Norwegian catchments, with focus on endangered aquatic and semiaquatic nature types (habitats) such as riparian vegetation, oxbow lakes etc.
- - Assess land use changes and exemplify application of physical data in a selection of catchments with different management regimes (water body characteristics from Vann-nett.no)
- - Postprocessing of LIDAR-data to detect historic morphological alteration of river channels and riparian
- zonation (100 meter-zone along the main river-channel)
- - Qualitatively assessment of land use change and spatial scale of dynamic nature types
- - Explore the feasibility of machine learning to analyse the ecologically most significant hydromorphological alteration
