Influência da Hidromorfologia dos Ribeiros Urbanos nas Comunidades de Invertebrados Aquáticos
Year: 2020
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Currently, over half of the global population lives on urban areas, and this number is expected to continue growing. Urbanisation brings several environmental issues, water management being one of them, particularly stormwater management. The alteration of urban hydrology such as the increase of flashiness and runoff volume affects urban freshwater ecosystems, particularly urban streams. This dissertation highlights the importance of urban streams for achieving sustainable urban water management, since they are blue-green nature-based-solutions that provide several important ecosystem services to the urban population. Such services include, amongst others, the diminishing of flood risk, temperature regulation, and human wellbeing improvement. These benefits will contribute to achieving urban sustainability and improve the resilience of cities in face of urban growth and climate change.Considering how the ecology of urban streams is compromised due to urbanisation, the restoration of such systems is imperative. A review paper is introduced regarding urban stream restoration, namely why some restoration projects fail and how to successfully carry out such efforts. The communities of benthic macroinvertebrates expose the ecological state of a stream ecosystem, and thus implementing measures that improve the diversity of such assemblages will inherently improve the overall ecosystem and consequently, its function and ecosystem services. Essentially, to guarantee the success of urban stream restoration projects, the whole ecological context of the urban stream system needs to be assessed, including biologic interactions, morphology, hydrology, state of the watershed, water quality, sources of pollution, and land use. Once the context of the project is thoroughly understood, actions need to be prioritised according to the needs of the ecosystems.
Language: English
Subfield: Ecology
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7224037189