For optimal management of river floodplains in the Netherlands monitoring of natural vegetation succession and hydrodynamic processes is essential. A key biophysical parameter to monitor floodplains is vegetation biomass. Not only because it influences the hydraulic resistance determining the discharge capacity of the floodplains, but also indicating species diversity and habitat heterogeneity ...

the study of flow in compound channels with vegetated floodplains is essential to assessing the development of the stage-discharge relationship and sediment and pollutant transport. the present study experimentally investigated mean flow and turbulence characteristics in a prismatic compound channel. the experimental program consisted of vegetated and non-vegetated floodplains with different re...

Environmental heterogeneity is a key regulator of ecological processes. Riverine floodplains are particularly heterogeneous and dynamic systems and loss of their natural environmental heterogeneity and dynamism as a consequence of human impacts constitutes their most serious threat. On river floodplains, flow and flood pulses create a shifting mosaic of channels, ponds, bars, islands, and ripar...

One of the greatest challenges in understanding the Amazon basin functioning is to ascertain the role played by floodplains in the organic matter (OM) cycle, crucial for a large spectrum of ecological mechanisms. Fatty acids (FAs) were combined with environmental descriptors and analyzed through multivariate and spatial tools (asymmetric eigenvector maps, AEM and principal coordinates of neighb...

Flores et al. (1) suggest that large Amazonian floodplains are vulnerable to fire and that a future, drier climate will trigger wide-spread conversion of floodplain forests into fire-dominated savanna. Furthermore, the authors argue that fires in fluvial networks will cascade through nonflooded communities and spearhead fire-induced change in the wider basin. We disagree with the reasoning, whi...

Floodplains are threatened ecosystems and not only ecologically meaningful but also important for humans by creating multiple benefits. Many underlying functions, like nutrient retention, carbon sequestration or water regulation, strongly depend on regular inundation. So far, these approached the basis of what called ‘active floodplains’. Active floodplains, defined as statistically inundated o...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS In the context of the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth in 1809, this study discusses the variation in structure and adaptation associated with survival and reproductive success in the face of environmental stresses in the trees of tropical floodplains. SCOPE We provide a comparative review on the responses to flooding stress in the trees of freshwater wetlands i...