From November 2016 to October 2019, the Institute of Hydraulic Engineering and Calibration of Hydrometrical Current-Meters / Federal Office of Water Management participated in the project "HyMoCARES" (HydroMorphological assessment and management at basin scale for the Conservation of Alpine Rivers and related Ecosystem Services) from the Interreg Alpine Space programme.
This programme brought together actors from different thematic areas and different levels of action from the Alpine states to address common challenges, exchange, test and implement ideas.
Further information are available under https://www.alpine-space.eu/projects/hymocares/en/home
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Project duration: November 2016 - October 2019
Partners involved:
Germany (2 partners)
France (2 partners)
Italy (4 partners)
Austria (2 partners)
Switzerland (2 partners)
Slovenia (1 partner)
Project budget: EUR 2,6 million / financed by the European Regional Development Fund
Image of the Lech - branched river with an overgrown gravel island in the middle of the river
Background and general objectives
Water bodies represent one of the most used and modified landscape elements in the Alps. Although massively threatened by bed erosion, they provide a number of key ecosystem services (ES), i.e. benefits that people derive from ecosystems. In order to enable their preservation or even their renaturation, river morphological processes in particular must be understood. These are strongly dependent on social challenges such as the improvement of flood protection, production of renewable energy, preservation of biodiversity or the preservation of the recreational potential of alpine valleys.
The project aims to find appropriate approaches to demonstrate the link between use, river morphological processes and ES availability and to make the ecosystem services of riverine landscapes more transparent to the public. Solutions are to be found where conflicts of use occur and tools for finding solutions are to be developed that incorporate newer methods and span a range of private and state actors, planning and actual planning implementation as well as science and practice.
Lower course of the Bregenzerach - a lateral gravel bank with people bathing
Work packages
Four work packages supported by a separate management and a communication work package had the following contents:
WPT1: Development of a concept for the evaluation of ecosystem services of alpine riverine landscapes
WPT2: Development of tools for observation, assessment and prediction of hydromorphological processes
WPT3: Effects of hydromorphological management and renaturation measures
WPT4: Implementing the HyMoCARES approach in current planning and management processes
WPM: Management
WPC: Communication
widened and near-natural section of the Drau river in Carinthia - young willows on a gravel island