The river restoration 'ecological toolbox': examining biomonitoring indices to guide catchment management strategies

该项目将开发一个“生态工具箱”，确定对河流生态系统造成压力的主要压力源，以及在实施具体的河流恢复战略后促进生态恢复的可能性。它将通过采用原始数据收集“大数据”方法来评估关键的人为压力源，这些压力源应根据多个大型无脊椎动物指标的响应进行优先排序，并确定河流恢复机会。候选人将利用河流恢复中心的专业知识和他们的“国家河流恢复清单”，以针对暴露于特定人类干预和压力的水道。候选人还将与环境署的“BIOCONDITIONS”数据集合作，对目标河流的长期淡水河流大型无脊椎动物进行调查。将对一套河流恢复措施进行全流域评估和了解，以便为有效的管理战略提供信息。工业合作伙伴将帮助确定具有可靠基线数据的恢复项目（接近完成或最近完成），这些基线数据将是原始数据实地收集的重点。这将提供一个更大的因果关系的生态机制的理解，支持大型无脊椎动物度量响应，从而进一步完善和提高生态工具箱及其预测可持续河流恢复干预的能力。

This project will develop an 'ecological toolbox' that identifies primary stressor(s) stressing river ecosystems and the likelihood of promoting ecological recovery following the implementation of specific river restoration strategies. It will do so by employing primary data collection a 'big-data' approach to assess key anthropogenic stressors which should be prioritised based on the response of multiple macroinvertebrate metrics and identify river restoration opportunities. The candidate will draw on the expertise of the River Restoration Centre and their 'National River Restoration Inventory' to target watercourses exposed to specific human interventions and pressures. The candidate will also work with the Environment Agency's 'BIOSYS' dataset on long-term freshwater river macroinvertebrate surveys from targeted rivers. Catchment-wide assessments and knowledge on a suite of river restoration measures will be undertaken to inform effective management strategies. The industrial partners will help identify restoration projects (near completion or recently finished) with robust baseline data which would be the focus of primary data field collection. This will provide a greater causal understanding of the ecological mechanisms underpinning macroinvertebrate metric responses, thus further refining and improving the ecological toolbox and its ability to predict sustainable river restoration interventions.