Titulo: Scientific fundamentals for the ecological restoration of wetlands in the floodplains of the Middle Ebro River, CGL2005-07059-C02-02.
Universidad de Zaragoza, Instituto Pirenaico de Ecologia-CSIC, 2008-2011,
Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia.
The objective of this project was to know the efficiency of a strategy for riverine wetlands restoration based on combining the flood potencial and the auto-organization of the ecosystem. Lack of this combination has been the reason for failures in dloodplains restoration activities developed in practices with no reference to consistent theoretical knowledge. The project will take place in the floodplains of the Middle Ebro River (Natural Reserve Los Galachos-Ox-bow Lakes-) with the following tasks: i) Predictive flooding models for finite volumes of low waters will be developed based on laboratory experiments and field data collected during flood events, in order to fit water flow coefficients and suspended and dissolved compounds flow coefficients, in order to know water quality performance as flood proceeds and the area related potential flood; ii) The hydrological connectivity of wetlands will be improved, directly with the river water vía surface and through groundwater in different wetlands, and planting (using selected plant species) will be performed in adequate sites and conditions under controlled conditions to test the efficiency of restoration based on auto-organization (no planting conditions) versus stimulated community structure (planting). The results will be useful to be applied as strategies for the ecological restoration of wetlands at large scale in floodplains of regulated rivers.