Final Life TRivers Congress: Advances and future prospects for the management of temporary rivers.

Palau Robert in Barcelona hosted this congress, which was attended by the technicians of the Life TRivers project and other scientists specialized in hydrology.

On May 3, the day began at 9.15 am with the reception and welcome to the attendees. At 9.45 a.m., the lectures by the specialists began and they presented the studies carried out throughout the morning. After lunch, the congress continued to offer lectures and a debate where the speakers responded to the concerns of the attendees. The day ended at 5.30 pm with a concluding message from Narciso Prat, professor at the Department of Ecology and director of the Freshwater Ecology and Management Research Group (F.E.M.) at the University of Barcelona.

The participation of the technicians of the Life Tritó Montseny project in this congress on May 3rd was very fruitful. Networking is one of the actions foreseen in our project (action E6).

On Friday, May 4th, the congress offered a TREHS software course.

 

The main objective of the Life TRivers project is to provide European river basin authorities and other stakeholders with a software tool (TREHS, Temporary Rivers' Ecological and Hydrological Status) to determine whether a river is temporary or not and to properly assess the ecological status. This software is based on a predictive model of the evolution of the characteristics of rivers over time and will detect whether the seasonality is due to the natural characteristics of a river, to climate change or to human action. This will allow the selection of appropriate dates for sampling to determine ecological status and ensure that the results are comparable to other river systems. In addition, the project will indirectly contribute to defining the ecological flows needed to meet the environmental objectives of the Mediterranean region. The results will contribute significantly to improving the management of temporary rivers and to increasing recognition in society and policies for the management and protection of aquatic biodiversity.

The LIFE+ TRivers project (Implementing the water framework directive for temporary rivers: tools for the assessment of their ecological status) is co-financed by the EU LIFE programme and coordinated by the F.E.M. research group of the University of Barcelona.