Fundamentals and Frontiers of Floodplain Research and Management

This project will utilise the extensive databases on the physical and ecological structure and function of rivers collected by the principal investigator and associates in Europe and USA. Using these databases as a predictive model of the physical character of river ecosystems will be constructed and tested on systems in Australia, Europe and USA. Associations between aquatic communities and ecological processes such as benthic production and food web complexity will be developed. The models will then be tested on a number of river ecosystems in a range of environmental settings. In doing so the project will develop the Riverine Ecosystems Synthesis - a framework - for study and modelling of riverine ecosystems