CROSSLINK is a research project aiming at improved understanding of aquatic-terrestrial and longitudinal linkages in stream networks. These linkages are essential for sustaining biodiversity and key ecosystem services such as nutrient cycling, flood mitigation, and freshwater provision. However, human activities such as agriculture and hydropower generation frequently degrade these coupled ecosystems. Therefore, the results of CROSSLINK will be used to optimize management of biodiversity, ecosystem services, and multiple human uses at the land-water interface.
Stream-riparian networks are key components of green and blue infrastructure (GBI) that underpin landscape integrity by transporting nutrients, regulating floods, buffering human impacts and supplying fresh water. Unfortunately, stream-riparian networks are also subject to multiple human pressures (e.g,. from hydropower and agriculture) that affect longitudinal and lateral connectivity, driving habitat and diversity losses, threatening ecosystem services, and causing stakeholder conflicts. Thus, there is a pressing need to understand the importance of connectivity within these networks, and to apply this understanding in managing stream-riparian GBI for both natural values and societal needs.
This section of the river Dalälven in Färnebofjärdens nationalpark, Sweden shows the intimate link between coupled riparian and stream ecosystems. Photo: F. J. Burdon.
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Overhanging riparian vegetation provides habitat both for the adult stages of aquatic insects, and for terrestrial consumers of aquatic insects. Photo: Brendan Mckie
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Mosupsbäcken, Sweden: a linked forest-stream ecosystem in winter. Photo: Brendan Mckie
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Dams and weirs are a major cause of longitudinal (upstream-downstream) discontinuity in stream-riparian networks. Photo: Frauke Ecke.
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Dam removals are one type of management action that can improve longitudinal connectivity. Photo: Frauke Ecke
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Water-level fluctuations due to river regulation alter the hydrological relationship between rivers and their adjacent riparian zones. Photo: Frauke Ecke.
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Beaver dams and the associated impoundments and beaver meadows are natural drivers of altered longitudinal and later connectivity in stream-riparian networks. Photo: Frauke Ecke.
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CROSSLINK aims to
CROSSLINK will analyse existing data and policies on stream-riparian GBI and conduct extensive novel and spatially explicit field studies in four case-study basins:
CROSSLINK will analyse existing data and conduct extensive novel and spatially explicit field studies. A portfolio of key ecosystem assets for stream-riparian networks will be constructed, comprising biodiversity, ecosystem processes and services, and flood protection and resilience properties. Relationships between the portfolio elements, spatial connectivity and human impacts are analysed and incorporated into an optimisation platform, which identifies spatial configurations and strategies for GBI that minimize management trade-offs and maximize multifunctionality.
The explanatory power of these approaches is compared and contrasted, leading to identification and refinement of optimal connectivity measures at both local and whole network scales. Relationships between the portfolio elements and spatial connectivity and multiple human uses and impacts are analysed, and incorporated into an optimisation models which focus on identifying spatial configurations and strategies for GBI that minimize trade-offs in management while maximising multifunctionality from local to landscape scales.
The main findings from CROSSLINK, including optimal solutions for GBI planning, will be translated into a learning-based environment allowing stakeholder analysis of tradeoffs/synergies between multiple values/goals in the management and design of stream-riparian GBI.
Map of the participant countries in CROSSLINK. Yellow countries are those involved in data collection and analysis, whilst Germany in pink contributes an optimization framework for design of a multifunctional stream-riparian green-blue infrastracture.
CROSSLINK is funded through BiodivERsA, under the Horizon 2020 ERA-NET COFUND scheme.
Full project title: CROSSLINK - Understanding cross-habitat linkages between blue and green infrastructure to optimize management of biodiversity, ecosystem services and multiple human uses
Keywords: Riparian-stream, green-blue infrastructure, biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, ecosystem services, resilience, ecological connectivity, optimal solutions, portfolio, learning environment
Francis Burdon, Postdoctor
Department of Aquatic Sciences and Assessment, Section for Ecology and Biodiversity, SLU
francis.burdon@slu.se
