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River ecosystems have witnessed a long history of human pressure, particularly the disruption of freshwater fish populations. The awareness of this situation has led to many habitat improvement projects, with a variable degree of success. In natural situations, fish populations co-inhabit throughout the hydrological cycle with different degrees of adequacy, and the sequence of favourable and unfavourable conditions dictates abiotic constraints and biotic interactions that shape the final biological assemblages. We postulate that a part of unsuccessful restoration results is related to insufficient closeness to the natural habitat conditions of the river type that is to be restored, including the naturally adverse periods.

River ecosystems have witnessed a long history of human pressure, particularly the disruption of freshwater fish populations. The awareness of this situation has led to many habitat improvement projects, with a variable degree of success.

Two different approaches to define the ecological status of several catchments (NW Portugal) are compared. At a coarser scale, all the stream network was classed using GIS according to several variables related to: a) biotic indicators, such as native and exotic fish species, benthic biotic index and characteristics of the riparian corridor); b) chemical indicators of contamination, where an estimation of industrial and urban organic loads and water quality was included. This methodology is preceded by a typological classification so that a determination of the ecological status can be made separately of each of the physical units integrated in the watercourse.

El proyecto UE Interreg IVB Sudoe RICOVER es un es un ejemplo pionero en el desarrollo de modelos que minimicen el impacto ambiental mediante la promoción de un uso más eficiente de los recursos. El objetivo principal de este proyecto se basa en el desarrollo de estrategias conjuntas para la protección y restauración de los ríos, que desarrollan un papel tan importante en los ecosistemas.

Understanding the underlying mechanics of bank storage and return flow is important for quantifying the contributions of event water and groundwater in sustaining streamflow during dry periods. Analytical models have been widely used to estimate the impacts of bank storage, but are often based on assumptions of conditions that are rarely found in.

European Directive
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:31992L0043:EN:HTML

Directive 2000/60/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2000 establishing a framework for Community action in the field of water policy

The demands of the Water Framework Directive over the next few years imply considerable effort in the conservation and restoration of river reaches based upon the reliable classification of river corridor conservation status that discloses information on causes of degradation. Using an adaptation of the KT Method, originally developed as part of the National Water Plan, a Map of River Corridor Conservation Status was drawn up for the River Odelouca catchment area that included the definition of existing fluvial reaches using geographic and hydrogeomorphological variables which were then assessed according to the presence of anthropogenic pressures

The measures implemented focus on the use of bio-engineering or natural techniques for rehabilitation of riparian buffer zones and river banks

Reliable lotic ecological monitoring requires knowledge of river typology, environmental factors, the effect of stressors known here as 'pressures' and appropriate indicators of anthropogenically induced change. We sampled benthic macroinvertebrate, fish, bird and macrophyte communities along an intermittent Mediterranean river and analysed community structure (relative abundance) and function (metrics) relative to environmental and pressure gradients in order to identify suitable indicator group (s) for future monitoring.