RiverLife information package

Information on and methods for water protection on rivers

The RiverLife information package offers extensive information on the river environment and on water protection. Under the heading  What is a river?, you will find information on water quality and the river ecosystem, as well as information on vegetation, algae, microbes, zoobenthos and fish of flowing waters. The section Human impact on rivers discusses the harmful substances found in river systems and the effects of various land uses on river ecosystems. The section Monitoring of rivers contains information on the monitoring and status assessment of rivers and on automatic water quality monitoring. Under the heading Management of rivers, you will find tools and methods for river management and information on how to apply them.

The RiverLife information package is part of a Decision Support System, RiverLifeDSS, which was developed in the RiverLife project to assess and manage the status of rivers and to plan land use in river basins.

In addition to the RiverLife information package, RiverLifeDSS includes tools developed in the RiverLife project.

• The Info tool allows the user to easily obtain information, for instance, on a specific form of land use, such as ditch maintenance, or on a more extensive measure, such as a water-system management plan. The tool also guides in the implementation of River Basin Analysis, developed in the RiverLife project. River Basin Analysis is an analytical approach to river basin characterisation.
• For the purposes of gathering and examining information on different river basins, RiverLifeDSS includes the GIS-based tool RiverLifeGIS. With the help of this tool the user can, for instance, view forms of land use, soil types and nature reservations in the target area. The user can also calculate land-derived nutrient loading from the river basin and assess the impacts of loading on the nutrient concentrations of different parts of the river.
• The RiverLifeDSS includes also a hydrological drainage basin model VMOD, which can be used to assess the impacts of land use changes on the hydrology and water quality of an area.