Revegetating riparian forest floodplain

Challenges: Riparian forest floodplains retain and remove nutrients leaching from uplands and adjacent agricultural fields, and have a high capacity to buffer diffuse pollution, including certain emerging contaminants. They host high biodiversity, but are vulnerable to climate change and anthropogenic pressures, especially degradation due to loss of flooded surface and water scarcity in rivers. Their ability to regulate water quantity and quality and preserve biodiversity will be affected, causing loss of ecosystem services. Hydrological changes could increase CO₂ emissions in riparian soils.

Solutions: Different experimental actions will be used to evaluate how efficient the riparian zone and riparian-stream interface are at retaining and transforming dissolved organic carbon, nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorous, emerging pollutants and waste-water treatment plant effluent. Trees will be used in stream restoration to stabilise riverbanks and control water erosion of the channel. Monitoring will include forest inventories, measuring ¹³C concentration in tree ring wood to estimate water-use efficiency, estimating specific leaf decomposition rates, and measuring soil nitrogen and carbon processes as well as soil CO₂, methane (CH₄) and nitrous oxide (N₂O) emissions.

Outcomes: The function of the restored riparian zone and riparian-stream interface as nature-based solutions for soil carbon sequestration and improving water quality will be quantified.