Fluvial processes and sediment dynamics of slope channel systems: impacts of socio economic-and climate change on river system characteristics and related services

SEVENTH FRAMEWORK PROGRAMME

Marie Curie Actions People: "International Research Staff Exchange Scheme"

PIRSES-GA-2012-318969

Duration of the project: 2012- 2016

Project summary

The project is focused on the ecological and morphological characteristics of river channels and related processes of erosion, sediment transport and deposition under changing boundary conditions described by socio economic and climate change scenarios. We will study effects of these changes on river systems at different spatial and temporal scales. The specific focus of the project is addressing the interface between the river channel and related slope systems. We will study historic evolution of river systems and will simulate future developments using scenarios.

The main projects scopes are:

1) Exchange of experience, methods and knowledge in fluvio-morphologic processes research.

2) Developing and harmonization of tools and models for monitoring and management of hillslope-river channel-systems.

3) Assessment of hydromorphological processes, and pressures across multiple temporal and spatial scales in different European river systems.

We will examine the links between erosive processes and hydromorphology in the context of integrated river basin management, considering the interactions with other elements of the whole system such as anthropogenic pressures and environmental changes. The new tools will help to assess the processes dynamics at the interface between hydrogeomorphological river processes and slope systems in a qualitative way. Moreover, new innovative techniques will be developed and applied that allow a quantification of the processes. The special focus is on remote sensing, aerial photography, field measurements with total stations, GPS, statistical analysis, all integrated in a GIS.

Partner universities: 

Universita digli studi Firenze, Italy

Eberhard Karls Universitaet Tuebingen, Germany

Uniwersytet Kazimierza Wielkiego, Poland

Stockholms Universitet, Sweden

Universitatea “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” din Iasi, Romania

Institutul de Ecologie si Geografie, Moldova 

Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Ukraine 

Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, Ukraine 

Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia 

Coordinator at KFU

Prof.Dr. Oleg Ermolaev

Head of the Department of Landscape Ecology, Institute of Ecology and Geography