Setting Priorities in River Management Using Habitat Suitability Models

Worldwide river systems are under pressure from human development. River managers need to identify the most important stressors in a stream basin, propose effective management interventions for restoration. In European Union, Water Framework Directive proposes ecological status as endpoint these interventions. Many decision support tools exist that use predictive water quality models evaluate different scenarios, but only few consider river’s this analysis explicitly. This paper presents novel method, which combines abiotic monitoring data and biological data, provide information insight on why does not reach good status. We habitat suitability tool, can define scenarios. To end, we disassemble into its individual building blocks, i.e., community composition, perform an gap analysis. paper, present our method underlying concepts, illustrate benefits by applying regional level Flanders using biotic index, Multimetric Macroinvertebrate Index (MMIF). calculated number of correctly classified instances (CCI = 47.7%) root-mean-square error (RMSE 0.18) MMIF class value. Furthermore, there is monotonic decreasing relationship between results priority classification expressed MMIF, strengthened inclusion concepts (Pearson’s R2 −0.92 vs. −0.87). addition, complementary derived legal targets set variables. Thus, proposed further optimize sake sustainable decisions management.