A review of assessment methods for river hydromorphology

Assessment of river hydromorphological quality for restoration purposes: an example of the application of RHQ method to a Polish Carpathian river

“…In turn, a fundamental flaw of the methods of river habitat assessment is that they do not involve recognition of geomorphological processes influencing the present and the future hydromorphological state of rivers (Rinaldi et al 2013a, c;Belletti et al 2015), and this considerably limits their applicability for river restoration purposes. The RHS method belonging to this group involves the assessment of the richness of habitat features beneficial for river biota and includes the richness-based habitat quality in the definition of reference conditions.…”

“…Methods evaluating the quality of physical river habitats, such as the German LAWA-FS (LAWA 2000) or the British River Habitat Survey, RHS (Raven et al 1997), are most common worldwide and have been in use the longest (Rinaldi et al 2013a;Belletti et al 2015). This category encompasses methods for the survey and characterization of physical habitat elements, which can be classified as river habitat surveys or physical habitat assessments (Belletti et al 2015). Although these methods are based on field surveys, they do have certain limitations which put in question their applicability for hydromorphological assessment in river restoration projects.…”

“…These methods involve evaluation of the entire river corridor and both present and recent river change analysed on maps, aerial photos and orthophotos (Rinaldi et al 2013a;Belletti et al 2015). This group of methods includes, among others, the Australian River Styles Framework (Brierley and Fryirs 2005); IHG method in Spain (Ollero et al 2011), MQI in Italy (Rinaldi et al 2013b) and Polish method of river hydromorphological quality assessment RHQ (Wy_ zga et al 2009(Wy_ zga et al , 2010b(Wy_ zga et al , 2012b.…”

“…Consequently, a number of assessment methods were developed in particular countries to enable systematic evaluation of river hydromorphological quality (Rinaldi et al 2013a). Attempts at the standardization of these procedures brought about reviews (Belletti et al 2015) and comparisons of the methods used in different countries (Raven et al 2002;Scheifhacken et al 2012), and the European Committee for Standardization published two standards with the nomenclature and framework for hydromorphological evaluation of rivers (Boon et al 2010). However, many of the applied methods have one or more limitations: (1) they had been developed before the introduction of the Water Framework Directive and even though they provided the basis for its hydromorphological guidelines, they are not fully adjusted to its regulations; (2) they consist in static inventory of river habitat features and as such do not allow recognition of the ongoing hydrological and geomorphological processes; (3) they are general and involve little or no field surveys.…”

Using Pressure and Alteration Indicators to Assess River Morphological Quality: Case Study of the Prahova River (Romania)

“…In scientific terms, morphological reference conditions are viewed as evolutionary trajectories [8], highly dependent on water and sediment fluctuations [9] and, generally, on climatic variability and human factors [10]. For morphological pressure-alteration analysis, a simplified solution is adopted, and several definitions are available [11]: (1) in terms of pressures, reference conditions correspond to the absence or a minor presence of human interventions; (2) in terms of alterations, the reference channel form and processes correspond to a status prior to any major anthropogeomorphic interventions, in accordance with natural morphological typology (i.e., a river style framework [8]) [7]. For restoration purposes, reference conditions may be framed as best or expected state given the human interventions context [8,12].…”