Modelling of nutrient dynamics and vegetation succession in midstream sediment bars of a regulated river

Abstract

In the floodplain of a regulated river with an intermittent flood disturbance, nutrient dynamics is mainly dependent on the successional stage of vegetation, types of flora and initial substrate conditions brought about by a previous large flood. In this study, we collected data on plant and substrate parameters from a gravelly bar of a regulated river in Japan and developed nutrient dynamic and vegetative succession models on the basis of allometric relationships between observed data. The models were validated with field observed data from the Ara and Kurobe Rivers of Japan. We obtained satisfactory agreements between observed and simulated results. The developed models can predict the progressive vegetative biomass and amount of nutrients processed by herbaceous plants and trees on a sediment bar during large flood intervals.

Ecological modeling of riparian vegetation under disturbances: A review

“…Setting sample plots (Asaeda and Rashid, 2014;Cooper et al, 1999;Scott et al, 1999) in riparian zones of the river according to GIS are commonly used experimental methods in modeling vegetation responses, whereas many hydraulics related models can be simulated in the laboratory (McBride et al, 2007). Empirical methods can help to simplify modeling problems, but the conclusions are correct and expandable to similar problems only when the anthropogenic assumptions and controlling are rational according to the natural rules.…”

“…Numerous studies on the response of riparian vegetation to such disturbances have been motivated by the need to assess and mitigate their negative influence (Leighton and Risser, 1989;Toner and Keddy, 1997;Asaeda and Rashid, 2014;Witte et al, 2014). The apparent complexity of disturbances-induced changes in the physical and ecological processes has impaired the development of vegetation response models, even if predictions of disturbances are possible.…”

Mechanism of Riparian Vegetation Growth and Sediment Transport Interaction in Floodplain: A Dynamic Riparian Vegetation Model (DRIPVEM) Approach

“…Flood disturbance is one of the major causes of vegetation mortality in the riparian zone either by inundation or bank erosion [5][6][7]. The morphological alterations in riparian area caused by a flood event either supports or suppresses the riparian vegetation, which depends also on the sediment grain sizes deposited on the original sediment surface or exposed of previous underlying also on the sediment grain sizes deposited on the original sediment surface or exposed of previous underlying sediment surface [8]. The flood hydrology affects the hydrochory in the riparian area during flood time, recruits seeds, and begins colonization of trees [9].…”

“…The number of seeds floating during a flood event, magnitude of the flood, duration and frequency of flood occurrence determine the seed recruitment phenomenon in the riparian area [11][12][13]. The area of vegetation coverage in the riparian zone is directly dependent on the availability of water, nutrients available in water and sediment before and after the flood event, and exchange of nutrients from atmosphere to the floodplain [8].…”

“…The objectives of this study are to link the interacting parameters with vegetation growth in the mathematical model to elucidate the mechanisms behind riparian vegetation growth dynamics in the perspective of long-term vegetation growth modelling of a riparian area. This paper highlights the existing modelling technique of DRIPVEM [8,9,35] used to establish the interactive relationship of sediment grain size and riparian vegetation in the floodplain.…”