OSCAR - Optimising the configuration of woody riparian buffer strips along rivers to enhance biodiversity and ecosystem services

Oscar is synthesizing and complementing the knowledge on the effects of woody riparian buffers on biodiversity and ecosystem services

OSCAR in a nutshell

Example

Background

  • Oscar is synthesizing and complementing the knowledge on the local and catchment-wide effects of woody riparian buffers on biodiversity and ecosystem services
  • Woody riparian buffers along rivers:
    • enhance biodiversity, e.g. by providing wood and leaves as habitat and food
    • provide multiple ecosystem services, many more besides nutrient retention, e.g. mitigating water temperature and climate change effects
    • the local effects of individual woody buffers potentially add up in downstream direction and they may serve as migration corridors connecting near-natural sites in a catchment-wide green infrastructure network
  • Knowledge gaps on overall benefits and catchment-wide effects limit the strategic and targeted implementation.

Objectives

  • Synthesize and complement the knowledge on:
    • overall local benefits of individual woody buffers
    • how effects depend on the spatial arrangement at the catchment scale and its role as migration corridor
  • Optimize effects by applying this knowledge in case-study catchments in different scenarios to identify catchment-wide woody buffer configurations with high overall effects
  • Knowledge brokering by providing tools and management / policy recommendations for the strategic and targeted implementation of woody buffers at the national and EU level based on the scenarios

This research is funded through the 2015-2016 BiodivERsA COFUND call for research proposals, with the national funders German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (01LC1618A), Agence National de Recherche (ANR-16-EBI3-0015-01) and Research Council of Norway (268704/E50).