Ecohydrological evaluation of a selected small stream and its catchment

Katarina Trnovec

Master's thesis

Abstract:

SummaryThe Revúca River is a typical hilly and mountain river. It is located in the northern part of Slovakia called Liptov. It is surrounded by and flows through national nature parks. The whole region is a well-known touristic area. There are parts of the river that are totally undisturbed, while some others are significantly modified. The aim of this work was to evaluate the proximity of this stream and its individual sections to nature and their suitability to maintain and develop life of already present water organisms, as well as their capacity to retain water in the area. This was done via two ecomorphological methods, named EcoRivHab and HEM, developed at the Charles University of Prague.The river with its 33, 43 km length and 265, 73 km2 catchment area represents a typical medium-sized stream of the Liptov region. For the purpose of evaluation, the stream was divided into seven homogeneous sections with different lengths. These sections were evaluated following the EcoRivHab and HEM ecomorphological methodologies. Overall, the Revúca River is rated as slightly modified (II. Ecomorphological Grade = EG) by both methods. Some stream section, however, were evaluated differently by EcoRivHab and HEM. This was due to different criteria used in the two methods. The EcoRivHab method was usually more generous and the resulting grades were close to nature (I. EG) along 46%, slightly modified (II. EG) along 29% and medium modified (III. EG) along 25% of the stream length. The HEM methodology was harsher, evaluating only 27% of the stream length as close to nature (1. EG), 25% as slightly modified (2. EG), 43% as medium modified (3. EG) and 5% as strongly modified (4. EG). The highest degree of man-made modifications of the stream was identified in the urbanized areas of Liptovské Revúce and Ružomberok towns. Some other minor modifications were found in Liptovská Osada and Biely Potok villages, but the biggest issues are two fish migration obstacles and the highly urbanized area of Ružomberok. Therefore, there are two revitalization actions proposed in this work. The first one is to create a migration path for the biota and the second one is to revitalize the river in the Ružomberok area.

Keywords

ecohydrology, hydromorphology, EcoRivHab, HEM, catchment, habitat

Language used: English

Date on which the thesis was submitted / produced: 24. 4. 2017

Thesis defence

• Supervisor: Ing. Markéta Miháliková, Ph.D.

Czech University of Life Sciences Prague

Faculty of Agrobiology, Food and Natural Resources

Master programme / field:
Natural Resources and Environment / Natural Resources and Environment