The identification of highly diverse and functional riparian zones is key to ensuring the conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services such as the provision of habitat and clean water, regulation of nutrient cycling and sediment dynamics, flood buffering and adaptation to climate change
ANNUAL REPORT 2025
Prioritising riparian ecotones to sustain and connect multiple biodiversity and functional components in river networks (RIPARIANET)
The objective of RIPARIANET is to advance knowledge on the composition and distribution of riparian zones and their contribution to ecosystem functions and aquatic biodiversity for the improvement of integrated watershed management.
1. CHALLENGE
Riparian zones are ecotones that connect terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, bringing together a great diversity of habitats and species, and perform key ecosystem functions. Their high temporal dynamism, together with their structural complexity in the form of a network, requires that riparian zones be studied at multiple scales: from the local to the landscape scale, as well as along seasonal cycles.
2. SOLUTION
Combining remote sensing to obtain environmental databases (vegetation, land use) on a regional scale with field sampling and laboratory analysis to assess microbial diversity, biological processes and pollutant transfer. Thus, it has been possible to develop ecological models of habitats and ecosystem functions, which together with a perception analysis of key stakeholders (managers, fishermen, citizens), allow the identification of biodiversity hotspots and provision of ecosystem services in riparian zones.
3. RESULTS
IHCantabria, together with an international team of experts in river ecology (Portugal, Italy, Germany, Sweden), has characterized riparian habitats and their capacity to regulate soil erosion, diffuse pollution filtering and temperature buffering. In addition, it has evaluated the relationship of riparian forests with other components and processes of river ecosystems, such as soil and river microbial diversity, organic matter decomposition, metabolism rates and algal biomass accumulation, or the transfer of pollutants from terrestrial to aquatic ecosystems.
