Local Riverine Fish Communities as Promoters for Habitat Restoration in the Floodplain Area of the Lower Rhine

摘要

Intensive human impact upon European rivers, including the Rhine, began more than 500 years ago. The rivers were canalized for the purpose of navigation and regulated using weirs and sluices for water resource control and flood defense. Habitats werefragmented and flood plain land was reclaimed for urban and industrial purposes (Nienhuis et al. 2002; for a section of the lower Rhine cf. Figure 1). Starting in the 19th century, major dam building activities for both hydroelectric power and drinking water supply began. In addition, massive dyke constructions substantially narrowed the flood-plain area and completely changed the hy-drological regime; increased current velocities, stronger altitudes in discharge, and more extreme flood peaks were the results. About 85% of the formally regularly inundated area along the River Rhine is lost today (IKSR 1998), which equals an area of about 2,450 km2 (Engel, German Federal Institute of Hydrology, personal communi-cation).